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LIFE 



HORACE MAN 



By his wife. 



Pf\ OvT'U '' Pf] MM^ • J m vs ... n §v&. 






BOSTON: -'^ 

WALKER, FULLER, AND COPvIPANY, 

245 Washington Street. 

M DCCC LXV. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1805, 
By MRS. MARY MANN, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



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Stereotyped by C. J. Petees and Son. 
Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avert. 



DEDICATION. 



I DEDICATE this work to THE YOUNG. Those who were young 
when Mr. Mann first entered upon his educational work in Massa- 
chusetts, and who are now men and women, love to call themselves his 
children. " My eighty thousand children " was a favorite expression 
of his own ; and those words alone expressed the sentiment he felt 
towards them. They were to him the next generation, whose culture 
must tell upon society for good or for evil ; and it was a /delightful 
task to help them to a better one than was then enjoyed by the people 
at large. 

In his later life, other young people came under his direct personal 
influence, who were old enough to love him with enthusiasm, and to 
labor cordially to diflfuse the views and purposes of life which he so 
earnestly inculcated upon them. I know they will love to read the 
record of his growth, of his affections, and of his success ; and they 
can also sympathize with his trials. If he had been less ardent, he 
would have suspended the gigantic efforts he made for success in his 
last enterprise to a period when he could have obtained more co-opera- 
tion ; but his zeal in the cause blinded him to the extent of his own 

physical powers, and he fell as by a mortal blow. 

M. M. 
CoNCOKD, Mass. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It has been more difficult than was anticipated to write a memoir 
of a life from so near as point of view. I am conscious of my dis- 
abilities as well as of my advantages for the grateful task. One 
tends to idealize a character, which, during many years of the clos- 
est intimacy, was never swayed by unworthy motives, or acted upon 
secondary principles, and over which the beauty of sacred affections 
poured an indefinable charm. I am aware, that, where others see 
faults, I see only virtues. When his is called a " rugged nature," 
because he could not temporize, and because he made great requi- 
sitions of men upon whom were laid great duties, I see only his 
demand for perfection in others as well as in himself; and no 
man ever made greater requisitions of self. He could forget his 
own interests when he worked for great causes ; and he sometimes 
wished others, who had not his moral strength, to do likewise. 
But the very requisition often evolved self-respect to such a degree 
as to bring forth the power to do the duty, as many a man who 
has come under his influence can testify ; and what greater honor 
can we do to our fellow-man than to expect of him the very high- 
est of which he is capable ? It is true of him, that he had not 
much charity for those who sinned against the light; but it is 
equally true, that his tenderness for the ignorant and the oppressed 
was never found wanting, and that the first motion of repentance 
in the erring melted his heart at once. Love of man was so es- 
sentially the impelling power in him, that it cost him no effort to 
exercise it ; but he had no self-appreciation which made him feel 
that he could do what others could not if they would. Perhaps 
the most remarkable trait in his character was his modest estimate 
of himself. He measured himself by the standard he wished to 
attain, and not by comparison with others ; and, when he was lauded 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

for wliat he had accomplished, his unaffected humility made him 
uncomfortable because the act was not more worthily and ade- 
quately performed : for, at every stage of his progress, he was as far 
from his own ideal excellence as before. By nature, he craved the 
sympathy and approbation of his fellow-men, — not of the populace, 
but of those whom he respected and loved ; yet even this craving 
did not deflect him from the path of rectitude, or blind him to the 
deroands of duty. Principles were more to him than even friends ; 
which is no light praise of one who loved so tenderly, and felt so 
keenly every suspicion of his motives. He rarely unbosomed him- 
self ; for his sensibilities were of exquisite delicacy : the musician 
who has the acutest ear for harmony is not more sensitive to a dis- 
cord than he was to the slightest jar of feeling. He was too earnest 
a man to be able to sustain superficial relations with other men ; 
and this often made him solitary when he would fain have been 
social, and made his intimate circle a small one. Friendship meant 
more to him than to most men : it implied not only pleasant social 
relations, but a oneness of sentiment and principle, without which 
the deUcate links of the magic chain would soon part. He could 
not give his affections to those who did not share his love of hu- 
manity or his moral insight ; for both his conscience and his intel- 
lect must consent before the bond could be cemented. But, when 
he did vinfold his heart, the surrender was entire ; and he became 
again a child in his confidence, and dependence upon affection. In 
those crises of his life when divergence of principle separated him, 
as was inevitable, from many whom he had loved, and of whom he 
had hoped all noble things, a woman could not weep bitterer tears 
over the disappointment. This tenderness of his character can only 
be equalled by the moral force with which he assailed whatever he 
saw to be wrong in the world. It was a conscientious act with him 
to battle with evil wherever he saw it. Man was endowed with 
his destructive and combative powers for this end alone, as he 
thought ; his only legitimate enemy being evil. The men who were 
the victims of it were the objects of his solicitude ; the men who 
made evil their good, the objects of his attacks, if only so could he 
lay the spirit that marred creation. Still, evil was, in his estimation, 
only relative ; the absence of good, one of the conditions of imper- 
fection and of growth. 

" If I believed in total depravity, I mast, of course, believe in 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

everlasting punisliment," he would say; "but I consider both 
unworthy of Grod." To hunt evil into its corner, therefore, was the 
first step towards turning it into food for growth. He could bear, 
for himself and others, present pain, however acute, in order to 
redeem as much of this life as possible for truth and heaven, whose 
enjoyment is entered whenever the spiritual element is made to 
take precedence of the earthly one in our double nature. Painful 
early impressions of his heavenly Father cast a cloud over much 
of his religious life ; for persons of sucb delicate organization do 
not easily recover from impressions made upon their nerves in 
childhood. He could have said with another remarkable man who 
emerged from the gloom of Orthodoxy into the hght and life of 
religious liberty, " My heart is Unitarian ; but my nerves are still 
Calvinistic." But his faith in endless progress grew stronger with 
every experience, till his very aspect was irradiated by it. All 
nature became full of revealin2;3 to him, — revealino-s of beneficent 
laws, of overflowing love : nothing in it seemed trivial to him ; for 
every thing had been an object of divine thought, from the hum- 
blest flower, or even stone, to the most distant star. And, while 
he loved with an unutterable love the beauty God had made, the 
revelations of science were scarcely less sacred to him than the rev- 
elations of moral truth ; and they were illustrative of each other 
in his teachings. This conception of the universe was not given to 
his childhood ; but he wished it to remain the birthright of all who 
came under his influence, rather than that it should be wrested 
from their experience as it had been from his own. 

But not the less earnestly did he continue to labor to put the 
weapons of strength into the hands of the young, or less sturdily do 
battle against the enemies that assail us from within ; and he learned 
to look with more pity than indignation upon tbose who abused 
Grod's gifts, when they should only have used them. In reproving 
the young, whicb it became his duty to do, he was often moved to 
tears ; and the more obdurate the subject, the more deeply he was 
affected. But one of those who responded most genially and 
naturally to his inspiring touch said of him, that " it was heaven to 
look into his face." 

Those who loved him are consoled by the thought that he did not 
live to see the terrible struggle of his beloved country ; for he was 
keenly susceptible to every form of suffering, and had forelived it 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

all by his realization of the relations of cause and effect. His clear 
moral convictions would have saved him from any doubt that this 
is a necessary war of pm-ification ; yet he had allowed himself to 
hope for a more peaceful solution of our national evil through the 
milder forms of industrial and commercial interests. Like the 
great souls of all times, he wished beneficent changes to come to 
pass through reflection rather than through violence.* 



* Since the above was written, the glorious advance in public sentiment, which 
has resulted in the death-blow given to the cause of all our woe, might well 
make his friends wish that he could have lived to share the universal joy. Yet 
who can doubt that all is open vision to those who have vanished into other 
spheres from spheres below scarcely less divine ? 



LIFE OF •HORACE MANN. 



CHAPTER I. 

HORACE MANN was born in Franklin, Mass., on the 
4th of May, 1796. His father, who died when he 
was thirteen, was a farmer, and a man who left in his 
family a strong impression of moral worth, and love of 
knowledge ; but he had not the means to give his chil- 
dren any better advantages of education than this inher- 
itance. His mother, with whom Horace remained till he 
was twenty years of age, was the object of his most pro- 
found respect and tender affection ; but, in those days, a 
certain reserve and distance existed between parents and 
children, which constituted a great barrier to freedom of 
intercoin^se. His habits of reserve were such, that, by his 
own account, he never told even his mother of personal 
physical sufferings until they revealed themselves by their 
own intensity ; and of his mental emotions he never 
thought of any thing but to keep them to himself. In 
our day, when enlightened parents make it such a point 
to secure the personal confidence of their children by 
sympathizing in their least joys and sorrows, we can 
hardly reconcile a sterner rule with the idea of true affec- 
tion, or estimate the depressing effect of such puritanical 
manners upon a sensitive child. He was obliged to work 
out all his problems alone, and retained only painful 



10 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

recollections of the whole period which ought to he, with 
every child, a golden age to look back upon. But, even 
at that time, his lively affections and naturally joyous na- 
ture bubbled up irrepressibly when in company with those 
of his own age. He was full of practical fun and witty 
repartee ; playing his native logic on all half-thinkers, but 
never unkindly. If any opportunity had been offered 
him for artistic culture, he might have excelled in it ; for 
he sometimes tried his wings in secret. But there was a 
repressing influence upon all such " foolish waste of 
time;" and he said of himself, that, in his younger days, 
he was accustomed to regard the cultivation of the imagi- 
nation in the light of a snare to virtue rather than as a 
legitimate enjoyment of God-given powers. It has been 
well said of him by a sagacious friend, that " his causal- 
ity was an inspiration." It was all that saved him in 
those dark days, as may be seen by his own testimony. 
His modesty, however, being as striking a trait as his logi- 
cal power, his heart was long influenced by the social 
views around him, even after he suspected their fallacy. 
In a letter to a friend, he says, — 

I regard it as an irretrievable misfortune that my childlioocl was 
not a happy one. By nature I was exceedingly elastic and buoyant ; 
but the poverty of my parents subjected me to continual privations. 
I believe in the rugged nursing of Toil ; but she nursed me too much. 
In the winter time, I was employed in in-door and sedentary occupa- 
tions, which confined me too strictly ; and in summer, when I could 
work on the farm, the labor was too severe, and often encroached 
upon the hours of sleep. I do not remember the time when I began 
to work. Even ray play-days — not play-days, for I never had 
any, but my play-hours — were earned by extra exertion, finishing 
tasks early to gain a little leisure for boyish sports. My parents 
sinned ignorantly ; but Grod afiixes the same physical penalties to the 
violation of his laws, whether that violation be wilful or ignorant. 
For wilful violation there is the added penalty of remorse ; and that 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 11 

is the only difference. Here let me give you two pieces of advice 
which shall be gratis to you, though they cost me what is of more 
value than diamonds. Tiain your children to work, though not too 
hard ; and, unless they are grossly lymphatic, let them sleep as 
much as they will. I have derived one compensation, however, 
from the rigor of my early lot. Industry, or diligence, became my 
second nature ; and I think it would puzzle any psychologist to tell 
where it joined on to the first. Owing to these ingrained habits, 
work has always been to me what water is to a fish. I have won- 
dered a thousand times to hear people say, " I don't like this busi- 
ness;" or, "I wish I could exchange for that;" for with me, 
whenever I have had any thing to do, I do not remember ever to 
have demurred, but have always set about it like a fatalist ; and it 
was as sure to be done as the sun is to set. 

What was called the love of knowledge, was, in my time, neces- 
sarily cramped into a love of books ; because there was no such 
thing as oral instruction. Books designed for children were few, 
and then' contents meagre and miserable. My teachers were very 
good people ; but they were very poor teachers. Looking back to 
the schoolboy-days of my mates and myself, I cannot adopt the line 
of Virgil, — 

" fortunatos uLmium sua si bona norint I " 

I deny the bona. With the infinite universe around us, all ready 
to be daguerrotyped upon our souls, we were never placed at the 
right focus to receive its glorious images. I had an intense natural 
love of beauty, and of its expression in nature and in the fine arts. 
As " a poet was in Murray lost," so at least an amateur poet, if not 
an artist, was lost in me. How often when a boy did I stop, like 
Akenside's hind, to gaze at the glorious sunset, and lie down upon 
my back at night on the earth to look at the heavens ! Yet, with 
all our senses and our faculties glowing and receptive, how little 
were we taught ! or, rather, how much obstruction was thrust in 
between us and Nature's teachings ! Our eyes were never trained 
to distinguish forms and colors. Our ears were strangers to music. 
So far from being taught the art of drawing, which is a beautiful 
language by itself, I well remember that when the impulse to express 



12 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

in pictures what I could not express in words was so strong, that, as 
Cowper says, it tingled down to my fingers, then my knuckles were 
rapped with the heavy ruler of the teacher, or cut with his rod, so 
that an artificial tingling soon drove away the natural. Such youth- 
ful buoyancy as even severity could not repress was our only dancing- 
master. Of all our faculties, the memory for words was the only 
one specially appealed to. The most comprehensive generalizations 
of men were given us, instead of the facts from which those generali- 
zations were formed. All ideas outside of the book were contraband 
articles, which the teacher confiscated, or rather flung overboard. 
Oh ! when the intense and burning activity of youthful faculties shall 
find employment in salutary and pleasing studies or occupations, 
then will parents be able to judge better of the alleged proneness of 
children to mischief. Until then, children have not a fair trial be- 
fore their judges. 

Yet, with these obstructions, I had a love of knowledge which 
nothing could repress. An inward voice raised its plaint forever in 
my heart for something nobler and better ; and, if my parents had 
not the means to give me knowledge, they intensified the love of it. 
They always spoke of learning and learned men with enthusiasm 
and a kind of reverence. I was taught to take care of the few books 
we had, as though there was something sacred about them. I never 
dogs-eared one in my life, nor profanely scribbled upon title-pages, 
margin, or fly-leaf; and would as soon have stuck a pin through my 
flesh as through the pages of a book. When very young, I remem- 
ber a young lady came to our house on a visit, who was said to have 
studied Latin. I looked upon her as a sort of goddess. Years after, 
the idea that I could ever study Latin broke upon my mind with the 
wonder and bewilderment of a revelation. Until the age of fifteen, 
I had never been to school more than eight or ten weeks in a year. 

I said we had but few books. The town, however, owned a small 
library. When incorporated, it was named after Dr. Franklin, 
whose reputation was then not only at its zenith, but, like the sun 
over Gibeon, was standing still there. As an acknowledgment of 
the compliment, he offered them a bell for their church ; but after- 
wards, saying that, from what he had learned of the character of the 
people, he thought they would prefer sense to sound, he changed the 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 13 

gift into a library. Thougli this library consisted of old histories 
and theologies, suited, perhaps, to the taste of the "conscript fathers" 
of the town, but miserably adapted to the " proscript " children, yet 
I wasted my youthful ardor upon its martial pages, and learned to 
glory in war, which both reason and conscience have since taught 
me to consider almost universally a crime. Oh ! when will men 
learn to redeem that childhood in their offspring which was lost to 
themselves ? We watch for the seedtime for our fields, and improve 
it ; but neglect the mind until midsummer or even autumn comes, 
when all the actinism of the vernal sun of youth is gone. I have 
endeavored to do something to remedy this criminal defect. Had I 
the power, I would scatter libraries over the whole land, as the 
sower sows his wheat-field. 

More than by toil, or by the privation of any natural taste, was 
the inward joy of my youth blighted by theological inculcations. 
The pastor of the church in Franklin was the somewhat celebrated 
Dr. Emmons, who not only preached to his people, but ruled them, 
for more than fifty years. He was an extra or hyper-Calvinist, — a 
man of pure intellect, whose logic was never softened in its severity 
by the infusion of any kindliness of sentiment. He expounded all 
the doctrines of total depravity, election, and reprobation, and not 
only the eternity, but the extremity, of hell-torments, unflinchingly 
and in their most terrible significance ; while he rarely if ever des- 
canted upon the joys of heaven, and never, to my recollection, upon 
the essential and necessary happiness of a virtuous life. Going to 
church on Sunday was a sort of religious ordinance in our family ; 
and, during all my boyhood, I hardly ever remember staying at home. 
Hence, at ten years of age, I became familiar with the whole creed, 
and knew all the arts of theological fence by which objections to it 
were wont to be parried. It might be that I accepted the doctrines 
too literally, or did not temper them with the proper qualifications ; 
but, in the way in which they came to my youthful mind, a certain 
number of souls were to be forever lost, and nothing — not powers, 
nor principalities, nor man, nor angel, nor Christ, nor the Holy 
Spirit, nay, not God himself — could save them; for he had sworn, 
before time was, to get eternal glory out of their eternal torment. 
But perhaps I might not be one of the lost ! But my little sister 



14 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

might be, ray mother might be, or others whom I loved ; and I 
felt, that, if they were in hell, it would make a hell of whatever other 
part of the universe I might inhabit ; for I could never get a glimpse 
of consolation from the idea that my own nature could be so trans- 
formed, and become so like what God's was said to be, that I could 
rejoice in their sufferings. 

Like all children, I believed what I was taught. To my vivid 
imagination, a physical hell was a living reality, as much so as 
though I could have heard the shrieks of the tormented, or stretched 
out my hand to grasp their burning souls, in a vain endeavor for 
their rescue. Such a faith spread a pall of blackness over the whole 
heavens, shutting out every beautiful and glorious thing ; while be- 
yond that curtain of darkness I could see the bottomless and seeth- 
ing lake filled with torments, and hear the wailing and agony of its 
victims. I am sure I felt all this a thousand times more than my 
teachers did ; and is not this a warning to teachers ? 

What we phrenologists call causality, — the faculty of mind by 
which we see effects in causes, and causes in effects, and invest the 
future with a present reality, — this faculty was always intensely 
active in my mind. Hence the doom of the judgment-day was ante- 
dated : the torments which, as the doctrine taught me, were to 
begin with death, began immediately ; and each moment became a 
burning focus, on which were concentrated, as far as the finiteness 
of my nature would allow, the agonies of the coming eternity. 

Had there been any possibiHty of escape, could penance, fasting, 
self-inflicted wounds, or the pains of a thousand martyr-deaths, have 
averted the fate, my agony of apprehension would have been alle- 
viated ; but there, beyond effort, beyond virtue, beyond hope, was 
this irreversible decree of Jehovah, immutable, from everlasting to 
everlasting. The judgment had been made up and entered upon the 
eternal record millions of years before we, who were judged by it, 
had been bom ; and there sat the Omnipotent upon his throne, with 
eyes and heart of stone to guard it ; and had all the beings in all the 
universe gathered themselves together before him to implore but the 
erasm-e of only a single name from the list of the doomed, their 
prayers would have been in vain. 

I shall not now enter into any theological disquisition on these 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 15 

matters, infinitely momentous as they are. I shall not stop to in- 
quire into the soundness of these doctrines, or whether I held the 
truth in error ; my only object here being, according to your request, 
to speak of my youth biographieally, or give you a sketch of some 
of my juvenile experiences. The consequences upon my mind and 
happiness were disastrous in the extreme. Often, on going to bed 
at night, did the objects of the day and the faces of friends give 
place to a vision of the awful throne, the inexorable Judge, and the 
hapless myriads, among whom I often seemed to see those whom I 
loved best ; and there I wept and sobbed until Nature found that 
counterfeit repose in exhaustion whose genuine reality she should 
have found in freedom from care and the spontaneous happiness of 
childhood. What seems most deplorable in the retrospect, all these 
fears and sufferings, springing from a belief m the immutability of 
the decrees that had been made, never prompted me to a single good 
action, or had the slightest efiicacy in detening me from a bad one. 
I remained in this condition of mind until I was twelve years of age. 
I remember the day, the hour, the place, the circumstances, as well 
as though the event had happened but yesterday, when, in an agony 
of despair, I broke the spell that had bound me. From that 
day, I began to construct the theory of Christian ethics and doc- 
trine respecting virtue and vice, rewards and penalties, time and 
eternity, God and his providence, which, with such modifications as 
advancing age and a wider vision must impart, I still retain, and 
out of which my life has flowed. I have come round again to a 
belief in the eternity of rewards and punishments, as a fact neces- 
sarily resulting from the constitution of our nature ; but how infi- 
nitely different, in its effects upon conduct, character, and happiness, 
is this belief from that which blasted and consumed the joy of my 
childhood ! 

As to my early habits, whatever may have been my shortcomings, 
I can still say that I have always been exempt from what may be 
called common vices. I was never intoxicated in my life ; unless, 
perchance, with joy or anger. I never swore : indeed, profanity was 
always most disgusting and repulsive to me. And (I consider it 
always a climax) I never used the "vile weed" in any form. I 
early formed the resolution to bo a slave to no habit. For the rest. 



16 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

my public life is almost as well known to others as to myself; and, 
as it commonly happens to public men, " others hnow my motives a 
great deal better than I do.'''' 

A recent letter from a friend, touching upon the same 
topic, deepens the impression just given : — 

. . . Yes, it is true that Mr. Mann spoke to me often of his boy- 
hood, chiefly of its sorrows. One of these was the death of a 
brother, who was drowned at twelve years of age. He said he was 
a charming boy, and that his death immediately brought home to his 
heart the terribleness of the theological views in which he was edu- 
cated. He had been in the habit of hearing logic chopped upon the 
scheme of the universe, the federation of the race in Adam, the 
plan of redemption by Christ's atonement, &c. ; and there was a 
certaia entertainment to his mind in this intellectual gymnastic, so 
that he became a very expert theologue himself, and could refute 
the Arminian and Arian theories with great acumen. But there 
were certain things that did not feel good to his heart which he 
often heard from the pulpit ; such as, that ' ' the smoke of the 
damned was the enjoyment of the blessed," and "the punishment 
of the wicked one of the special glories of God." He had none of 
the canonical evidences of being in a state of grace himself: and a 
strange fascination used to impel him, Sunday after Sunday, to find 
in Watts's hymn-book, and read over and over again, a certain verse, 
which must be eliminated from modern editions, for I cannot find it ; 
but it depicted the desolation of a sohtary soul in eternity, rudder- 
less and homeless. 

He had a strong impression, that, if he should die, he should per- 
sonate the " solitary souF' therein depicted. But when his darling 
brother died, having not yet experienced the orthodox form of con- 
version, his agonized heart stimulated his imagination to clothe it in 
his brother's form and feature. He thought he could see in his 
mother's face a despair beyond the grief of losing the mortal life of 
her son ; and when, at the funeral. Dr. Emmons, instead of sug- 
gesting a thought of a consoling character, improved the opportunity 
to address a crowd of young persons present on the topic of " dying 
unconverted," and he heard his mother groan, a crisis took place in 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 17 

his experience, similar to that described in Mrs. H. B. Stowe's story 
of the "Minister's Wooing," when Mrs. Marvin hears of her son 
James' death, without knowing whether he was converted or not. 
His whole being rose up against the idea of such a cruel Creator, and 
declared hatred to him ! He would hate Infinite Malignity personi- 
fied, if he must suffer eternally in consequence. The childish 
image, familiar to his mind, of a crystal floor covered with angels 
and saints playing on harps and enjoying the fruits of the tree of life, 
in the New Jerusalem, as described in the book of Eevelation, — 
under which scene, in full sight, was the hell so often emphatically 
described by Dr. Emmons, — recurred to his imagination ; and deli- 
berately, with all the tremendous force of his will, he chose to suffer 
with the latter, rather than make one with the selfish immortals who 
found happiness in witnessing torture. 

But to put himself at odds in this way with what he still thought 
was Infinite Power produced a fearful action upon his nerves. His 
imagination was possessed by the idea of a personal Devil, to whom 
he had no attractions, whatever was his repulsion from Grod ; and he 
was yet too young to get behind all these forms, in which the de- 
praved imagination of men had clothed the great realities of the spir- 
itual life. Nature seemed to him but the specious veil in which 
demons clothed themselves. He expected the foul Fiend to appear 
from behind every hedge and tree to carry him off. 

To escape from such misery, — which sometimes in the night 
amounted to such intensity that he saw fiends and other horrid 
shapes distinctly as with his bodily eyes, and was obliged to use the 
utmost force of his will to keep from screaming, — he did what he 
could to divert himself with study ; but his early tastes for investi- 
gating and experimenting in science were all repressed by the im- 
possibility of procuring books or any other materials to work upon. 

Still the fund of humor, the sparkling wit, which all his sorrows 
could never quench, and the childlike playfulness into which he 
always fell with children, as if it were his element, could not but 
have made him a charming, merry child ; and I have heard from his 
elder as well as from his younger sister and playfellow that he was 
such. 

To me it was a marvel that so sensitive a boy, absolutely banished 

2 



18 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

from the bosom of a heavenly Father, grew up so sweet, so truth- 
ful, so faithful to the unknown God, whom he ignorantly worshipped, 
and who, unawares to himself, strengthened him for his protest 
against the popular theology. 

The Unitarian sect was nearly unknown, and " everywhere spoken 
against," at the time he went to college; and he did not go where 
it prevailed, but to Brown University, where, while he was a 
scholar, there was what is called a "revival of religion." 

He had now become acquainted with the classics, and had begun 
to read history and general literature ; and he accepted the Deism 
of Cicero, and began to feel tliat true religion was the cultivation 
of social duty, and to feed his heart and imagination on the idea of 
making a heaven of society around him, with a home of his own for 
the Holy of Holies; though, as he said, he was not without occasional 
anxious glances towai'ds the future life, of which he felt that he knew 
nothing. 

The exercise of his great intellectual faculties, and of his pure and 
noble affections in philanthropy, gradually brought him into a health- 
ier atmosphere of feeling and thought ; and at last his happy marriage 
seemed to justify God's creation. 

Such is the impression that he gave me of the general course of 
his experience, which I have expressed as well as I can. I did not 
know him until after he was a widower ; and, in those first years of 
sorrow, all the gloom of his childhood returned upon him with terri- 
ble power. It was a relief to him to 

" Give sorrow words, 
Lest, whispering the o'erwrought heart, it break ; " 

and in such conversations he would detail his early life. I think I 
then obtained the deepest impressions I ever received, from any mor- 
tal that the soul is a child of God, and that virtue has no element 
of self-love or self-seeking in it. He was good, and was willing 
good to others, and striving to confer it, although his heart's utter- 
ance as for a brief moment was that of Jesus of Nazareth : " My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " I have, therefore, 
not been surprised, that since the stress of that bei'eavement grew 
lighter on his heart, and since he found himself in a home, and 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 19 

blessed with children, the radiance of religious light and love has 
flowed from his lips ; nor that in the hour of his death he should 
seem never to think of himself, and to say no word except to uplift 
others into partaking the life and beneficence of God. Nothing in 
his life was more eminently characteristic than just such a death. 

Yours, . 

But while some of the circumstances of his early life 
seemed thus adverse, others were favorable to the ripen- 
ing of his strong yet gentle, brave yet tender, character. 
Perhaps they were all favorable ; for those which directly 
hindered his intellectual progress may have tended indi- 
rectly to bring out in him his strong views and purposes 
of reform. The true soul transmutes all circumstances : 
only inferior natures are crushed by them. 

In speaking of the influences which make a man a 
man, we must never lose sight of the truth, that only the 
highest natures are fully susceptible to the highest in- 
fluences. The same motives may be operating upon dif- 
ferent individuals ; but only the well-poised soul will 
respond to them generously and faithfully. Emerson 
has truly said, "He is great who is what he is from 
nature, and who never reminds us of others ; " and 
again, " Man is that noble endogenous plant which grows 
from within outward." 

In speaking of his youthful longing for more educa- 
tion, he once said to a friend, " I know not how it was ; 
its motive never took the form of wealth or fame. It 
was rather an instinct which impelled towards knowledge, 
as that of migratory birds impels them northward in 
spring-time. All my boyish castles in the air had refer- 
ence to doing something for the benefit of mankind. 
The early precepts of benevolence, inculcated upon me 
by my parents, flowed out in this direction ; and I had 
a conviction that knowledge was my needed instrument." 



20 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

Reverence for knowledge as a means of good, had, in- 
deed, prevailed in his father's family ; and his only sur- 
viving sister, who devotes her life to more than one of 
the saddest charities of the world, basing her action upon 
both intellectual and moral culture, is but another proof 
of it. 

Without any pride of pedigree, the family felt that it 
had an honorable, because a virtuous ancestry. All its 
traditions were of integrity and honor. The privations 
incident to the early settlement and growth of the New- 
England Colonies, following the sacrifices that necessarily 
pertained to the Pilgrim enterprise, strengthened sterling 
virtues, and transmitted them as a rich inheritance. 
Stern qualities, such as endurance, perseverance, toiling 
energy, and the might of self-sacrifice, were mixed with 
the more gentle traits of family affection, and devotion to 
the sentiments which had induced the forefathers to leave 
home and luxury for conscience' sake. The subject of 
our Memoir inherited his share of all these. All the 
family labored together for the common support ; and 
toil was considered honorable, although it was sometimes, 
of necessity, excessive. Horace had earned his school- 
books, when a child, by braiding straw ; and the habit of 
depending solely upon himself for the gratification of all 
his wants became such a second nature with him, that to 
the last day of his life a pecuniary favor was a painful 
burden, which could only be eased by a full requital in 
kind. One of the maxims he wished to have inculcated 
upon his children was, that they should " always pay 
their own expenses," and thus be able always to assert 
themselves independently, — the first element of true 
manhood. To afford them the means to do this, he de- 
nied his own life every luxury, and coined his very brain, 
as it were, into money. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 21 

A fine classical teacher at last crossed the young man's 
path, and a plan was formed by which he should pursue 
his studies. He prepared himself in six mouths from 
the time he began to study his Latin gx^ammar, and en- 
tered the Sophomore class of Brown University in Sep- 
tember, 181G. From that strain upon his health, and 
the still harder labors of his college-life, he never recov- 
ered. The rest of his life was one long battle with ex- 
hausted energies ; but how valiantly he fought it ! He 
struggled with it ignorantly at first, accomplishing all 
tasks as they presented themselves, until fairly laid upon 
his bed with illness ; and, after he had learned the theory 
and art of health, leaving no effort untried to redeem his 
own. Those wlio watched over him were obliged to 
reason with him, however, even in his advanced years, 
when he laid out too much work for his strength ; for he 
grew to be ashamed of ill health: and it must be con- 
fessed that he sometimes begged the question of duty to 
one's own health by saying that his life was not of so 
much consequence as the thing in hand to be accom- 
plished. 

Few young men leave home with so intense a sense of 
filial duty, or so thorough an acquaintance with mutual 
domestic sacrifices ; and all his letters home breathe the 
spirit of devotion to his friends. Nor did any young 
man ever make smaller means answer his purposes. He 
did not complain of this, but often made comical repre^ 
sentations of his pecuniary distresses. 

In a letter to his sister, written soon after entering col- 
lege, he says, — 

If the children of Israel were pressed for " gear" half so hard 
as I have been, I do not wonder they were willing to worship a 
golden calf. It is a long, long time since my last ninepence bade 
good-by to its brethren ; and I suspect the last two parted on no 



22 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

very friendly terms, for they have never since met together. Poor 
wretches ! never did two souls stand in greater need of mutual 
support and consolation. . . . For several weeks past, I have been 
in a half -delirious state on account of receiving no intelligence 
from home ; when this morning I met at the door of my boarding- 
house Mr. J. F. H , only two weeks from Franklin ! I would 

have shaken hands with the "foul fiend" himself if his last em- 
bassy had been to that place. For a good part of the time, I 
have been trying the experiment with respect to money which 
ended so tragically in the case of the old man's horse. 

I wonder you do not write. You seem to treat it as though it 
were a task, like the pilgrimage to Mecca, and not to be performed 
but once in a lifetime. Perhaps you will say you have nothing to 
write about. Write about any thing. The whole universe is before 
you, and offers itself to your selection. Dr. Middleton wi'ote an 
octavo volume of seven or eight hundred pages on a Greek article, 
which article consisted of one syllable, which syllable consisted of 
one letter ; and though I think such overflowing fecundity is not 
to be approved of, yet it cannot be so reprehensible as this lockjaw 
silence of yours. In your next letter, put in some sentences of 
mother's, just as she spoke them : let her say something to me, 
even if it be a repetition of those old saws, — I mean if it be a 
repetition of her good motherly advice and direction all about cor- 
rect character, and proper behavior, and straight-forward, narrow- 
path conduct, such as young Timothy's in the primer. You know 
the sublime couplet, and the elegant wood-cut representing the 
whole affair in the margin. But I ought not to speak of any sub- 
ject, which brings my mother's image to my mind, in any strain of 
levity. She deserves my love for her excellences, and my grati- 
tude for the thousand nameless kindnesses which she has ever, in 
the fulness of parental affection, bestowed upon me. How often 
have I traced her features in that incomparable description of 
Irving's of the Widow and her Son : " Oh, there is an enduring 
tenderness in the love of a mother to her son ! " &c. 

Again, in allusion to his sister's attendance upon her 
mother during a long illness : — 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 23 

I wish you to be careful of your health ; but, as far as that will 
permit, continue to go on in the discharge of every office of filial 
tenderness and love. Never did a parent more richly deserve this 
requital. The ties of nature, the bonds of consanguinity, she has 
strengthened by all the innumerable and nameless deeds of mater- 
nal kindness and solicitude. Others may have been more ostenta- 
tious of their anxiety, may have spent more time in useless wishes 
or unavailing prayers, because it is much easier to desire and pray 
an hour that one may receive assistance, than to labor half that time 
to give it ; but she has tested the sincerity of her affection by ac- 
tive and unceasing beneficence. When we have counted all her 
hours of care for us, and have cared as long and as deeply for her ; 
when we have numbered all her days of toil, and have toiled as 
long ; then, and not till then, can we commence the work of char- 
ity to her. 

Many years after, writing to a friend during an alarm- 
ing illness of his mother, he says, — 

Principle, duty, gi'atitude, affection, have bound me so closely to 
that parent whom alone Heaven has spared me, that she seems to 
me rather a portion of my own existence than a separate and inde- 
pendent being. I can conceive no emotions more pure, more holy, 
more like those which glow in the bosom of a perfected being, than 
those which a virtuous son must feel towards an affectionate mother. 
She has little means of rendering him assistance in his projects of 
aggrandizement, or in the walks of ambition ; so that his feelings 
are uncontaminated with any of those earth-born passions that 
sometimes mingle their alloy with his other attachments. How dif- 
ferent is the regard which springs from benefits which we hope here- 
after to enjoy, from that which arises from services rendered and 
kindnesses bestowed even before we were capable of knowing their 
value ! It is this higher sentiment that a mother challenges in a 
son. For myself, I can truly say that the strongest and most abid- 
ing incentives to excellence, by which I was ever animated, sprang 
from that look of solicitude and hope, that heavenly expression 
of maternal tenderness, when, without the utterance of a single 
word, my mother has looked into my face, and silently told me that 



24 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

my life was freighted with a twofold being, for it bore her destiny 
as well as my own. And as truly can I say that the most exqui- 
site delight that ever thrilled me was, when some flattering rumor of 
myself had found its way to her ear, to mark her readier smile, her 
lighter step, her disproportionate encomiums on things of trivial 
value, when I was secretly conscious that her altered mien was 
caused by the fountains of pleasure that were pouring their sweet 
waters over her heart. 

His fears for the life of his mother were not realized at 
that time. This beloved parent lived many years longer 
to bless him and to be blessed by him. How radiant was 
her joy in his successes, not in the paths of ambition 
only, but of duty ! Wlien he achieved good for others, 
how her heart " ran o'er with bliss " ! for she knew the 
high motives, the beneficent nature, from which his ac- 
tion sprang. Years after her death, when he was moved 
to tears by a testimonial of respect and affectionate re- 
gard for high services he had rendered to his State and 
to the world, how fervently he wished his mother had 
lived to enjoy it ! How keen was his remembrance of her 
maternal joys ! 

This trait of filial piety is not dwelt upon here because 
it is exceptional, but simply because it was a trait in Mr. 
Mann's character. Good and devoted mothers are not so 
rare, that a great proportion of men who read this record 
of a son's affection will find it difficult to recognize in 
their own hearts the truth of the picture ; but it is pleas- 
ing to know that the subject of our contemplation lost 
nothing out of his life from a neglect of or indifference 
to parental love, and that his appreciation of it was never 
wanting from his boyhood up. 

From the home and good influences of this excellent 
mother, whose character he learned to reverence more 
and more as he grew older, and where, if he had not 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 25 

variety and means of great intellectual culture, he 
had the advantage of being kept in ignorance of much 
of the evil that is in the world during those years in 
which the young need to be guided over the quicksands 
of passion, and pointed to the heights of principle, and 
to the example of the great and good who have resisted 
temptation, — and who can doubt that the longer the youths 
ful faith in goodness is fed by the ideal, the better ? — 
Mr. Mann passed into the charmed circle of another holy 
fireside, with which many years of his future life were to 
be linked, and under whose influence his life-purposes 
grew and were matured. It was during his college-life 
in Brown University that he became acquainted with the 
lady whom he married long afterward, the daughter of 
the excellent President of that institution. 

And here he slaked his burning thirst for knowledge 
at every fountain to which he could gain access. It is 
difficult for the young of the present time to estimate the 
advantages they enjoy in comparison with those of the 
generation to which Mr. Mann belonged. The young of 
this period begin where the young of that period arrived 
only after long study ; for the knowledge of a thousand 
things then unknown is in the very air we breathe, and 
the very figures of daily speech are predicated upon sci- 
entific facts then sealed to most men. Freedom of 
thought is following swiftly upon the traces of improved 
scientific knowledge, and a giant stride is now making by 
the nations that have long slumbered. The great dead 
may almost be expected to walk amongst us to give an 
earnest of their joy at the awakening to which they in 
their earthly lives contributed. 

Judge Barton, of Worcester, Mass., writes of him at 
this period : — 

My acquaintance with Mr. Mann commenced in Providence in 



26 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

the fall of 1816. We then both entered the sophomore class of 
Brown University, and soon contracted a friendship, which, on my 
part certainly, continued during his life. During the last two years 
of our college-life we were chums, occupying room No. — in Uni- 
versity Hall. We were both of mature, and I believe about the 
same, age. Having been brought up in the country (he in Franklin, 
and I in Oxford, Mass.), it was perhaps rather due to our early 
education than otherwise that the dissipations of neither the college 
nor the city had any controlling attractions for us. During the 
three years of our college-life, I recollect not a single instance of 
impropriety on his part. 

Perhaps I ought to confess one college sin, if sin it be deemed. 
The students had lona; been in the habit of celebratino; the Fourth 
of July in the chapel. In our junior or senior year, arrangements 
were made for the accustomed celebration. The college govern- 
ment forbade it. A majority of the students went for resisting the 
government. I went for loyalty. But my chum, being a little the 
more impulsive, and having been chosen the orator for the occasion, 
went for independence and the celebration of it. The procession 
was formed in the college-yard. I concluded, that, if there must be 
rebellion, I had better rebel against the college government than 
against the majority of my fellow-students. I took the front rank in 
the procession ; helped to open the chapel door ; and chum went in, 
and delivered his oration amidst great applause. A trifling fine was 
imposed upon him ; but he lost no credit with either the students or 
the government. I believe your honored husband afterwards vindi- 
cated the principles of subordination in college government. But 
I trust that our Fourth-of-July rebellion never gave him any serious 
remorse of conscience : it certainly never troubled mine. There 
are cases when generous sentiment pleads strongly for an amnesty 
of the fault of violating strict discipline. 

Notwithstanding Mr. Mann entered college under the disadvan- 
tage of going into an advanced class, he soon assumed the first place 
in it. He had been remarkably well fitted in the languages under 
an instructor of some note ; I think, by the name of Barrett. I 
never heard a student translate the Greek and Roman classics with 
greater facility, accuracy, and elegance. As we should expect, he 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 27 

was a fine writer ; and, as we should not expect from that circum- 
stance, he also excelled in the exact sciences. 

My chum possessed qualities of a high order. By this means he 
attracted the attention and secured the respect, not only of the mem- 
bers of our own class, but of members of the other classes in col- 
lege. Our room was the centre of much good company, except in 
study-hours ; and I sometimes almost wished that I had not so in- 
teresting and attractive a room-mate. But I felt much more than 
compensated by his intelligence, and by the fact that the company 
his genial manners invited were from amongst the best young men 
in the college. 

In connection with Mr. Mann, I always call to mind the late 
Rev. George Fisher of Harvard ; a very respectable clergyman, who 
died a short time before him. He had been a member of the col- 
lege a year before we entered ; was then deservedly the candidate for 
the first part in the class, but eventually received the second part, 
while Mr. Mann had the first. You will excuse me for saying that 
I was not a competitor for either of these parts, so called ; having in 
the space of nine months fitted for an advanced standing of one year 
in college, and being quite content with a position next subordinate 
to that of my friends. 

The religious views of your husband and Fisher were not quite 
coincident ; and their earnest, but I believe always courteous, dis- 
putes afforded much amusement, and perhaps some edification, to 
their fellow-students. I love to think of both of them as now ten- 
ants of the same happy land ; and I trust they have learned that 
men may enter it through different channels of faith, provided that, 
in time, they avoid the broad way that leads to death. 

After we graduated in 1819, our course diverged somewhat. Mr. 
Mann remained for some time at the college as tutor ; while I pur- 
sued my professional studies principally in Massachusetts, at the 
Cambridge Law School. We met first in public life in our State 
Legislature in 1830 ; Mr. Mann as representative of the town of 
Dedham, and myself of the town of Oxford. He bad been a mem- 
ber of the Legislature before I met him there, and remained some time 
after I left the Senate in 1834. He was President of the Senate 
in 1836. I found he enjoyed the same consideration and respect in 



28 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

the Legislature which was always accorded to him in the various 
public positions he occupied. We always agreed in our views as to 
public measures, and frequently co-operated in the committee-room, 
as well as in the ordinary routine of legislation. Among the most 
important measures that we instituted was the resolution of 1832 
for a revision of the General Statutes of the Commonwealth. The 
resolution will be found in my handwriting : but Mr. Mann greatly 
aided in its passage ; and, after the revision had been made, he, with 
our learned friend Judge Metcalf, supervised the publication of the 
work in 1836. 

Another and most beneficent subject of legislation, of which, as 
far as I know, Mr. Mann was the sole originator, is the State Luna- 
tic Hospital. 

I learn with much satisfaction that his friends are about to erect 
to his memory a bronze statue in front of the State House in 
Boston. That is well. But we have, my dear madam, in Worces- 
ter, a monument to his memory, literally " cere perennius,^^ — our 
State Lunatic Hospital, — valuable not only in itself, but as the 
parent of those beneficent institutions throughout the country. 

I might speak of your husband's valuable services as Secretary of 
the Board of Education in this State ; but those are well known to 
you and to all. I knew, if I could say any thing of interest to you, 
it must result from my early and intimate association with him in 
college-life. It is a green spot in my recollection, saddened, indeed, 
by the reflection that my friend is taken away before me, in the midst 
of his life's labor and usefulness. I shall always remain 

Yours very truly and respectfully, 

IRA M. BARTON. 

Mr. Mann took the " First Part," as it is called, when 
he graduated. The subject of his oration was the ^'■Pro- 
gressive Cliaracier of the Human Race.'''' This was his 
favorite theme all through life, the basis of all his action 
in education and in politics. Another youthful produc- 
tion, of which no copy can now be found, was upon '■'■The 
Duty of every American to Posterity P It is said by one 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 29 

who remembers it, that he treated the subject with a depth 
of insight and breadth of comprehension that go far to 
elucidate the meaning of the Hebrew propliet, who en- 
titled the Ideal Man he saw in the future the '■'■Father of 
Ages'' 

He left college to enter the office of Hon. J. J. Fiske 
of Wrentham, Mass. ; but was soon invited back to Brown 
University as tutor of Latin and Greek, where he was 
able to review carefully his classical studies and their 
collateral literature. He was very successful as teacher; 
noted for his fidelity and thoroughness, and the moral 
stimulus he gave to the pupils under his care. 

He would have been glad to devote some time to scien- 
tific study, as his personal interest in it led him to see its 
superior advantages in the culture of the whole man ; but 
facilities for it, so abundant now, were wanting then, and 
necessity obliged him to press on to the acquirement of a 
profession. 

Mr. Mann had taken the highest honors of the college, 
and had been eminently successful as tutor ; but, when 
lie left the place where he had been so fortunate and so 
happy, more grateful to him than any honors were the 
tears shed at parting by his lovely young friend, who 
afterwards became his wife. Dr. Messer had soon marked 
him as a favorite, and admitted him to his domestic circle. 
His daughter was still but a child : but Mr. Mann carried 
her in his heart for the next ten years ; and, as she grew 
and expanded into the most engaging womanhood, — for 
others as well as himself testify to her rare beauty of mind 
and character, — all his conceptions of excellence and all 
his hopes of happiness became identified with her image. 

What condition of the human soul is so exalted as that 
in which the love, not merely of excellence, but of the 
excellent, purifies every sentiment, and rallies every power 



30 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

to make it worthy to love and to inspire love ? What 
better guard - angelic over the character of a young 
man, especially over one already bent upon a noble ca- 
reer ? Such it was to him : and many of the finer traits 
of his character were doubtless confirmed by this en- 
nobling and purifying influence ; for his native earnestness 
made it impossible for him to love lightly. The painful 
modesty which was one of his distinguishing traits, and 
which always, even after all his successes in life, made it 
so difficult for him to realize that he was worthy the high- 
est estimation of his friends, rendered that period of his 
life one of intense anxiety as well as aspiration ; and all 
tended to make the short period of his domestic happiness 
a consuming fire, whose extinction nearly deprived him 
of life and reason. 

In 1821, Mr. Mann entered the Law School at Litch- 
field, presided over by the late Judge Gould. 

A letter from J. W. Scott, Esq., now of Toledo, 0., 
though bearing a recent date, is here given because it re- 
fers to that period : — 

Castleton, N.Y. 
My dear Mrs. Mann, — 

... I first saw Mr. Mann in the summer of 1822, in the lecture- 
room of Judge Gould, at Litchfield, Conn. The law-school of Judge 
Gould was then in the zenith of its prosperity, having an attendance 
of about thirty students. 

It was with a lively interest that I took my first observation of the 
young gentlemen with whom I expected to associate through a 
course of lectures. With no acquaintance or knowledge of any of 
the members, I took an interest in forming a judgment of their 
various characters and their comparative mental power by inspecting 
their persons. Phrenology had not then been taught in this country, 
and physiognomy was depended upon to show forth to the eye the 
characteristics of the person. Either through defect of my knowledge 
of it, or imperfection of the science, the conclusions deduced by me 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 31 

were quite incorrect. Mr. Mann's massive brow and higli arching 
head did not then tell me what a great intellect was indicated ; but 
the mild bright eye, and the pleasant expression of the eloquent 
mouth, told of geniality and mirthfulness. 

It was therefore easy to believe what was told me by the students, 
that he was the best fellow and the best wit in the office ; but not 
before I formed his acquaintance was it so credible to me (what I 
was also told) that he was the best whist-player, the best scholar, and 
the best lawyer of the school. 

Several of the students had been admitted to the bar, and com- 
menced practice before coming to Litchfield ; and others had possessed 
superior advantages to obtain law knowledge, and had brought with 
them no little proficiency in the science. 

Our lecturer, Judge Gould, was, ex officio, the bench of our 
moot court : the nest office, that of attorney-general, was elective 
by the students. Mr. Mann had been elected to that office before 
my arrival. It was not until near the close of the season that I 
formed much personal acquaintance with him. I think our first 
intimacy was formed in the room of our fellow-student, James Sul- 
livan of Boston, who was confined several weeks by acute inflamma- 
tion of his eyes. The room of suffering was always, I believe, at- 
tractive to Mr. Mann; and Mr. Sullivan, by his excellent qualities, 
was especially entitled to sympathy and aid from all. In our moot 
courts, held weekly, the question of law to be discussed was pro- 
posed, the preceding week, by Judge Gould; and four students, 
two on each side, were detailed to discuss it; 'the judge, at the 
close of the arguments, summing iip and giving the grounds of 
his judgment at length. The arguments of Mr. Mann were 
distinguished for the clearness — I might almost say the trans- 
parency — of the distinctions, and the fulness and pertinency of 
the analogies brought to the support of his position. On one 
occasion, when the side he sustained was opposed to the decision of 
the judge previously written out, it was the general opinion of the 
school that Mr. M. made out the best case. And of this opinion 
seemed to be the judge ; for, after reading the arguments to sustain 
his decision, he proceeded to reply to some of the points of Mr. 



32 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Mann, and, as we thouglit, with some exhibition of improper feel- 
ing or wounded self-esteem. 

Mr. Mann's mind was at this time, I think, more intensely en- 
gaged in metaphysical investigation than on any other subject; 
Brown being his favorite author. 

I parted from Mr. Mann at Litchfield, with the full conviction 
that his was to be one of the great names of our time, whether his 
clear and fertile intellect should confine itself — as was not probable 
. — to the law, or to any other one department of human knowledge. 
The only drawback to the realization of such a destiny seemed to 
be the lack of physical vigor compared with the immense develop- 
ment of bis nervous system, especially his cerebral organs. His 
rich nervous temperament had, however, something of that wiry na- 
ture (such as I have heard Mr. JIann attribute to Mr. Choate) 
which gave the muscular and vital functions, as well as the mental, 

gi'eat capacity for endurance. 

J. SCOTT. 

Mr. Scott did not understand the theory of tempera- 
ments precisely as Mr. Mann and other modern physiolo- 
gists do. Mr, Choate's temperament was undoubtedly a 
fibrous one, the most enduring and resisting of all ; but 
Mr. Mann's endurance came from tlie force of his will, and 
was subject to terrible revulsions. He could not, like a 
man of fibrous temperament, turn from one long-sus- 
tained effort to another, and thus find rest ; but utter 
prostration followed over-exertion, and many times in 
his life he has risen from such falls because his will never 
yielded the point. But this could not last always. Phy- 
siologists have assured him that there was but one mode 
of recovery for him under such circumstances. The only 
excesses he ever committed were those of brain-work ; 
and sleep.) not exercise, was his only restorative. 

After leaving Litchfield, Mr. Mann went into the office 
of the Hon. James Richardson, of Dedham ; and was ad- 
mitted to the Norfolk bar in December, 1823. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 33 

He had studied law, as he did every thing else, exhaus- 
tively, and worked thenceforth eighteen hours a day. 
Mr. Livingston ably describes his " forensic practice " in 
these words : — 

We believe the records of the courts will show, that, during the 
fourteen years of his forensic practice, he gained at least four out 
of five of all the contested cases in which he was engaged. The 
inflexible rule of his professional life was, never to undertake a case 
that he did not believe to be right. He held that an advocate loses 
his highest power when he loses the ever-conscious conviction that 
he is contending for the truth ; that though the fees or fame may be 
a stimulus, yet that a conviction of being right is itself creative of 
power, and renders its possessor more than a match for antagonists 
otherwise greatly his superior. He used to say that in this con- 
scions conviction of right there was a magnetism ; and he only 
wanted an opportunity to be put in communication with a jury in 
order to impregnate them with his own beUef. Beyond this, his aim 
always was, before leaving any head or topic in his ai'guraent, to 
condense its whole force into a vivid epigrammatic point, which the 
jury could not help remembering when they got into the jury-room ; 
and, by graphic illustration and simile, to fasten pictures upon their 
minds, which they would retain and reproduce after abstruse argu- 
ments were forgotten. He endeavored to give to each one of the 
jurors something to be " quoted " on his side, when they retired for 
consultation. He argued his cases as though he were in the jury- 
room itself, taking part la the deliberations that were to be held 
there. From the confidence in his honesty, and those pictures with 
which he filled the air of the jury-room, came his uncommon suc- 
cess. 

In 1824, he was invited by the citizens of Dedham to 
deliver a fourth-of-July oration ; and it was of this pro- 
duction that Mr. John Quincy Adams used such warm 
words of confidence as to his future career. 

In public life he was never a partisan ; and therefore, 

3 



34 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

though respected, could hardly be called popular. Nor 
did he ever let his feelings about men influence his pub- 
lic action. He advocated the right measures, and never 
allowed himself to be approached by motives of expedi- 
ency ; though, with all his ardor, he was eminently pru- 
dent and cautious. When State representative, to which 
office he was elected in 1827, his first speech was in de- 
fence of religious liberty, in opposition to a scheme by 
which close corporations could secure the income of given 
property forever to the support of particular creeds. His 
success was consummate : the bill was rejected ; and no 
similar attempt was ever after made in Massachusetts. 
One of the first, if not the first, legislative speeches ever 
printed in the United States in favor of railroads, was 
made by him ; and his whole public career of that period 
was marked by a devotion to the interests of public char- 
ities, of education, and of civil, political, and religious 
liberty, temperance, and public morals of every descrip- 
tion. Mr. Livingston has ably described these labors in 
detail. No one who watched them, or carefully reviews 
them, can fail to see what a mighty power one man can 
exercise if actuated by noble motives, and with the con- 
scientious feeling that he ought to do every thing he can 
which the powers he has been gifted with will enable 
him to do. Worldly ambition is an immense incentive to 
activity ; but the activity so inspired does not run in the 
channel of love for the ignorant, the needy, and the op- 
pressed. The patient, arduous labors which Mr. Mann 
performed in those years can never be estimated in the 
courts below ; but they made him a world-moving power, 
and gained for future spheres of action a mass of experi- 
ence and observation, which illuminated and indeed light- 
ened his subsequent career, enabling him to accomplish 
that which would otherwise have been impossible. 



. LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 35 

V 

Mr. Mann was not married until he had attained some 
eminence in his profession and in public life, paid the 
debts he had incurred for his education, and acquired a 
small competence. This he might have secured earlier, 
by his power at the bar, if he had yielded to the tempta- 
tion the profession of the law holds out to the unworthy, 
— the temptation to defend the ivrong. No lawyers are 
so popular with rogues — probably no lawyers receive 
such high fees from that class of men whose characters 
make the enactment of human laws necessary — as those 
who are facile upon this point. But Mr. Mann preferred 
to wait for his domestic happiness to yielding to great 
temptations that were offered to him. He had adopted 
the principle, from the beginning, never to put himself 
on the unjust side of any cause, even for intellectual glad- 
iatorship and practice. The young who have been 
under his instruction and influence will remember how 
earnestly he inculcated upon them this duty to them- 
selves. 

Of Mr. Mann's marriage, and life in Dedliam, an inti- 
mate friend of himself and wife writes : — 

How brilliant he was in general conversation ! with such sparkling 
repartee, such gushing wit, such a merry laugh, but never any non- 
sense. His droll sayings could never be recalled without exciting a 
hearty laugh at their originality. Even after the long life that has 
passed over me since those days of my youth, they are often sug- 
gested to my thoughts; but I do not laugh now. 

His originality was so refreshing, so exciting, because he treated 
the most trifling subjects in a manner peculiar to himself. 

And then how much power he had of drawing out other minds ! 
The timid ones, who usually hardly dared express themselves on 
grave and weighty topics, would rise from a tete-a-tete with him, 
wondering at the amount of talent, thought, and feeling he had 
opened, and the chord of sympathy he had touched. 

He was a radiant man then ; perhaps more so in the spright- 



36 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

liness and genuine mirth fulness of his nature than after the blight 
of sorrow fell so heavily upon him. In more intimate intercourse, 
in which his intellectual points were brought out, in the interchange 
of ideas and emotions suggested by mutual literary pursuits, we be- 
came cognizant of all the finer traits of his nature, as well as of the 
strong and brilliant ones. His exquisite tenderness and care for the 
feelings of others; his delicate appreciation of woman's nature, and 
his estimate of her capabilities, at the same time that he shrank from 
any assumption, on her part, of the place in social life for which she 
was by nature, and the evident design of Providence, unfitted ; his 
love, too, for the beautiful ; his quick eye for it in nature and 
art, in the inmost working of the human soul, and in its outward 
developments ; and the truth and honor and disinterestedness and 
earnestness of his whole character, with his warmth of heart, and his 
love of his race, and the intensity which was so marked in every thing 
which he did and said, made themselves very apparent in famil- 
iar and easy talk on every imaginable topic. When in his intercourse 
with men, politically and otherwise, other aspects of his character were 
seen, and his intense expression of his sentiments was sometimes 
thought to be bitter and sarcastic and exaggerated, I always felt 
and said that those who so regarded him did not know what was in 
him. 

His was too strong a nature not to come sometimes in collision 
with the opinions and prejudices, pei'haps with the principles, of 
other individuals, by whom, consequently, his true character could 
not be appreciated. 

When I knew his wife personally (I had long known her through 
him), I was indeed rejoiced that such an angelic being had been 
created to be his comfort, solace, joy, and happiness. She was ex- 
tremely delicate in health, and called forth the tenderest care. This 
fostering, protecting, caressing care, she had, of course, in perfection. 
It was expressed in every tone of his voice when he addressed her. 
It seemed as if she were too ethereal to dwell long on earth, and 
was only permitted to taste of earth's most perfect bliss, and then 
was taken to her heavenly home. Then came that sundering which 
seemed so dark and mysterious, and which it required so much faith 
to acquiesce in. Was it necessary tliat his own heart should be 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 37 

broken before be could perform the work that was allotted to 
him ? 

His most intimate letters of that period, which cannot 
be published, show with what a deep sense of responsibility 
and with what exalted aims he made that new home, • — 
every such new home being a new test on earth of man's 
capacity for improvement. All his arduous labors were 
lightened by his young wife's sympathy, and his plans for 
the amelioration of the woes of society quickened and 
widened by her aid and approval ; for, though very young, 
he found in her not only all the womanly purity and 
sweetness that he had expected, but a wisdom and 
humanity rare at any age. And her religion was the 
breath of life : its mien was rejoicing and hopeful, and 
illumined instead of darkening life. 

His short domestic happiness was to him the first per- 
fect proof of the goodness and benignity of God ; but it 
was very brief. A little less than two years comprised 
the whole of their married life. Her delicate health had 
always given him great anxiety, and the sufferings of her 
last illness were very severe, but borne with such fortitude 
that he was not aware ofits dangerous nature. She died 
in a sudden access of delirium, while he was watching by 
her side alone, with no one within call. The terrors of 
that dreadful night, spent alone with the dead, where he 
was found nearly insensible in the morning, revisited him 
with fearful power for many years at each recurring 
anniversary, and were never wholly dispelled. 

In the season of grief which followed, the shadows of 
his early creed returned upon him, and darkened his soul ; 
for he could not reason then. When we suffer, no less 
than in the hour of death, we cannot go to find our 
religion : it must find us, and save us. 



38 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

A few years afterwards, he wrote to a friend to whom 
he always loved to speak of his beloved wife : — 

I spent the last Sabbath in Providence ; and when I visited the 
spot which had been to me, as it were, the central point of the 
universe, and spoke the name of her who was once so quick to hear 
every sound af my voice, but who never will answer it again upon 
earth, I think I was able to realize more fully than I had ever done 
before, that what I loved was not there ! But what I still want is 
to be intimately penetrated with the feeling that she is in some 
region of blessedness. Were this a part of my consciousness, as the 
idea of our own existence is a part of our consciousness, whenever 
we reflect upon the things in which we have been engaged, I think 
I should soon find relief. It was on this account that I was more 
affected by that sermon of Dr. Channing's than by any thing I have 
ever heard before. 

And again : — 

Let me assure you that you have not pained me by adverting to 
a subject, which, as you truly suppose, does engross all my mind 
and heart, and forms the melancholy tissue of my life. My soul has 
gone over to the contemplation of one theme. Amid the current of 
conversation, in social intercourse or the avocations of business, in 
the daily walk of life, it is never but half forgotten ; and the sight 
of an object, the utterance of a word, the tone of a voice, re-opens 
upon me the mournful scene, and spreads around me, with electric 
quickness, a world of gloom. Perhaps even a nature composed of 
affection like yours cannot fully comprehend the condition of being 
through which I have passed. During that period, when, for me, 
there was a light upon earth brighter than any light of the sun, and 
a voice sweeter than any of Nature's harmonies, I did not think but 
that the happiness which was boundless in present enjoyment would 
be perpetual in duration. Do not blame my ungrateful heart for 
not looking beyond the boon with which Heaven had blessed me ; 
for you know not the potency of that enchantment. My life went 
out of myself One after another, the feelings which had before 
been fastened upon other objects loosened their strong grasp, and 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 39 

went to dwell and rejoice in the sanctuary of her holy and beautiful 
nature. Ambition forgot the applause of the world for the more 
precious gratulations of that approving voice. Joy ceased its quests 
abroad ; for at home there was an exhaustless fountain to slake its 
renewing thirst. There imagination built her palaces, and garnered 
her choicest treasures. She, too, supplied me with new strength for 
toil, and new motives for excellence. Within her influence there 
could be no contest for sordid passions or degrading appetites; for 
she sent a divine and overmastering strength into every generous 
sentiment, which I cannot describe. She purified my conceptions of 
purity, and beautified the ideal of every excellence. I never knew 
her to express a selfish or an envious thought ; nor do I believe that 
the type of one was ever admitted to disturb the peacefulness of her 
bosom. Yet, in the passionate love she inspired, there was nothing 
of oblivion of the rest of mankind. Her teachings did not make one 
love others less, but differently and more aboundingly. Her sym- 
pathy with others' pain seemed to be quicker and stronger than the 
sensation of her own ; and, with a sensibility that would sigh at a 
crushed flower, there was a spirit of endurance that would uphold 
a martyr. There was in her breast no scorn of vice, but a wonder 
and amazement that it could exist. To her it seemed almost a 
mystery ; and, though she comprehended its deformity, it was more 
in pity than in indignation that she regarded it : but that hallowed 
joy with which she contemplated whatever tended to ameliorate the 
condition of mankind, to save them from pain or rescue them from 
guilt, was, in its manifestations, more like a vision from a brighter 
world, a divine illumination, than like the earthly sentiment of 
humanity. But I must forbear ; for I should never end were I to 
depict that revelation of moral beauties which beamed from her 
daily life, or attempt to describe that grace of sentiment, that love- 
liness of feehng, which played perpetually, like lambent flame, 
around the solid adamant of her virtues. 

It was not long after Mr. Mann's removal from Dedham 
to Boston in 1833, a change which was brought about 
by friends who loved him, and felt that it was essential to 
his continued life and usefulness, that distressing circum- 



40 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

stances swept from him tlie hard-earned fruits of years of 
toil, for which he had worked sixteen hours a day in his 
profession, and subjected him to many privations of 
common comforts that seemed necessary to his health, 
then very precarious. In the midst of this misfortune 
occurred the death of his early and long-tried friend, Silas 
Holbrook. 

He wrote to a friend, of this event : — 

A denser shade of gloom has come over the earth ; and my faint 
heart bleeds anew. There is no man living who loved me so well 
as my friend Holbrook. I have a thousand times comforted myself 
with the thought, that if, amid the tempests of life, my character was 
lost overboard, there was one man who would plunge in to save it. 
As a friend, it is not enough to say of him, he was true : he was 
truth. At the time when the whole earth became to me a scene of 
desolation, he was the first man that came to me across its boundless 
wastes to support and uphold me. I might never have again rec- 
ognized Nature, or renewed my companionship with men, had he 
not won me back. Why should he be taken, and I left? He who 
rejoiced and improved every one here who knew him is snatched 
away, and my sentence of exile and banishment is prolonged. 
Where now is my best friend? What and whom has he seen? 
These thoughts overwhelm me ; and I can only say, that would to 
Heaven I were as ready as I am willing to follow him. ! 

The death of Dr. Messer soon followed, of which he 
wrote to the same friend : — 

Never was a more firmly linked circle broken. There was in 
that family such an intercommunity of thought and feeling, that the 
result could never be otherwise expressed than by absolute unity. 
Distrust was never banished from the house, for it never entered it. 
There was, of course, a common consciousness, and a desire for 
each other's welfare possessed all the energy of self-love with the 
self-sacrifice of disinterested affection. Of the effect of bereave- 
ment in such a family there can be no description. I looked upon 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 41 

tha dead witb envy, and pitied the living because they still lived. I 
administered consolations which I did not feel. I can speak to the 
heart-broken in language they can understand : I am versed in every 
dialect of sorrow. I know how this flattered and extolled world 
looks when it is seen from the side of the grave into which all its 
glory and beauty have gone down. 

Dr. Messer, certainly, had inspired his children with the most 
entire confidence : he never inflicted upon them in his daily admin- 
istrations any painful sensations or emotions ; and hence to hear 
him, and see him, and obey him, became associated with the idea of 
gratification ■ and pleasure and duty so harmonized, that they never 
knew from which motive they were acting. How rare it is to find 
that attachment which comes only from habits of agreeable inter- 
course, where no annoying or irritating acts are committed on either 
side, and where it has become a greater pleasure to yield or to har- 
monize than to be gratified by that which is displeasing to another ! 

A lovely mother also sanctified that home, of whom he 
said, that he never heard from her the expression of any 
other than a beautiful sentiment. Her love for him was 
so true, that there was always ample room in her heart 
for all that he loved and all that was his. 

When his own mother died, he wrote : — 

A memory full of proofs of the purest, strongest, wisest love is all 
that is left to me upon earth of a mother. So far as it regards this 
world, it is retrospection only in which I shall behold her, — the 
retrospection of a life in which she has always sought to make my 
comfort paramount to her own, and, amidst transient and casual cir- 
cumstances, has invariably kept her eye fixed upon my highest wel- 
fare. Death will not sanctify any of her precepts, her wise and judi- 
cious counsels ; for they v/ere sanctified and hallowed before. 

It is now years since I have felt as though I were on the isthmus 
between time and eternity. I have long ago left the earth, but have 
not yet entered the world beyond it. Standing in this solitude be- 
tween worlds, rny mother has passed by me ; and how much the bal- 
ance of the universe has chano-ed ! What weidat of treasure is added 



42 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

to the scale of the future ! A wife and a mother ; and such a wife ! 
In that heavenly world I cannot conceive of her lips as glowing with 
any diviner smile, nor hor forehead as starred with a more glorious 
beauty. And such a mother ! Were she now to return to earth, 
how, more devotedly than she has done, could she toil for the welfare 
of her children ? 

I go to-morrow morning to perform the last rites, and probably- I 
am to have a day, the like of which will never come to me again. 

Mr. Mann was subsequently associated with many 
minds whose high moral views coincided with his own, 
and whose happier religious associations aided his own 
elforts to put himself more in harmony with the universe, 
whose adaptations to the soul of man had been again lost 
sight of by his crushing sorrow. His quick sensibility to 
the sufferings of others, sharpened by his own grief, made 
him look upon life at that time as only a heritage of woe, 
to quote one of his own expressions. His native tender- 
ness of heart had shown him before, that life becomes 
such to all who do not live conformably to the laws of 
their being ; but he was now led to search more deeply 
into the remedies for it. For a long time, l)e felt as if 
motive itself were paralyzed : but others who saw his 
life, and its continued devotion to the highest aims and 
needs of humanity, saw that he was only temporarily be- 
numbed ; and his social and genial nature, at happy 
firesides where childhood and youth always recognized 
their friend, and where parents prized his influence, grad- 
ually became restored to cheerfulness. He often left 
such scenes abruptly when the contrast with his own 
lonely abode was felt too keenly ; but he returned to them 
again, driven from his solitude by its terrors. 

He was little interested in the exciting scenes of city 
life, where frivolity often reigns paramount ; but he prized 
highly the pleasures of intercourse with cultivated minds. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 43 

Mere literary characters, who had no deep interest in ame- 
liorating the evils of society, attracted him little. A cer- 
tain golden thread of benevolence must be found in the 
texture of every work of art or literature, or it failed of 
an effect upon him ; and it even seemed to him a per- 
verted use of Heaven-bestowed powers. Where his heart 
did not find moral beauty, the external semblance was an 
empty sliell. Perhaps he did not separate the work from 
its author sufficiently ; for men " build better than they 
know," as our great poet tells us : but to him the work 
was vitiated if it did not spring from a jDure source. He 
loved passionately the music of the human voice ; but he 
often said, " It did not touch me : there was no benevo- 
lence in it." This peculiar criticism was always his test, 
and no instrumental music ever pleased him that did not 
touch tender chords of feeling. He used to say of him- 
self, that he was born to sing ; but the long repression of 
that as well as of every other artistic tendency left him 
only the power to enjoy, not execute. Music with ap- 
propriate words was his delight ; but there were times 
when he could bear only the music, without the utterance 
of the sentiment in language. 

When he returned to the world, it was rather as a 
spectator than a participator in its ordinary pleasures : 
but, baptized in the divine flame which sorrow lights in 
the soul, he was ready to do all he could to supply its 
needs ; and it seemed to others that the period had passed 
when an unworthy thought or motive could influence 
him. His habits of indefatigable, inevitable labor stood 
him in excellent stead then. 

Outward helps came to him from such souls as Dr. 
Channing's, Rev. E. Taylor's, Mr. J. Phillips's, Dr. George 
Combe's. Nothing could be more different than tlie 
modes in which the liberality of Dr. Channing and Mr. 



44 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Taylor had been nurtured. One was born into as dark 
a faith as Mr. Mann himself, and had the misfortune, like 
himself, to hear the doctrine preached by a powerful ora- 
tor. Dr. Hopkins was to Dr. Channing's youth much 
such an evil genius as Dr. Emmons was to Mr. Mann's ; 
but other influences were favorable to the emancipation 
of Dr. Channing's mind ; and by the help of these, and 
of the highest culture, he had thought himself into the 
happiest confidence in the divinity of human nature. 

Mr. Taylor's youth was spent roughly, and reckless of 
human creeds. Later in life, he fell among uncultured 
enthusiasts, whose hearty religious enthusiasm he shared, 
but whose bigotry and superstition he shed as the cater- 
pillar sheds the skin from vfhich it soars into life and 
light and beauty. Bigotry could not retain or contain 
the soul of " Father Taylor," as his sailor audience affec- 
tionately call him. Where he saw fidelity to duty, love 
to man, allegiance to God, he gave his great heart. He 
recognized the tie which binds man to God even in the 
humblest form of piety in the simple and ignorant, and 
no less in those who acknowledged it amidst the errors 
and tyranny of human creeds. He knew the differ- 
ence, and sharply discriminated between religion and 
theology. 

The cordial love and sympathy between these two great 
men, who took the deepest interest in Mr. Mann, and saw 
his value to humanity, gave the latter a practical assur- 
ance of freedom from bigotry, which opened his heart to 
both ; and he drew from their full urns the balm of conso- 
lation which strengthened his failing steps. They deep- 
ened his favorite thoiight, that love to man is the best 
test of love to God, and must precede it. 
. Dr. S. G. Howe was an object of very tender affection 
to him ; and the reciprocation of the feeling was ever one 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 45 

of his greatest enjoyments. The same uncompromising 
devotion to the great causes tliey together promoted 
strengtliened this friendship. Both were disinterestedly 
benevolent, forgetful of self in duty, energetic and 
prompt in action, able to comprehend and act upon prin- 
ciple, and agreed that education must underlie all re- 
forms. 

Later in point of time, the Hon. Charles Sumner en- ^ 
deared liimself to Mr. Mann by striking into the same 
vein of love of freedom, and unswerving allegiance to a 
high sense of duty. When Mr. Sumner first went to 
Congress, Mr. Mann said of him that he was " the great- 
est constitutional lawyer in the country, except Col. Ben- 
ton." But that was not his highest title to the regard of 
good men. He could sacrince popularity to principle, not 
from native indifference to the approbation of his fellow- 
men, but in defiance of a natural love of it and of the 
social pleasures it brings, that makes firmness in the path 
of rectitude a noble trait. Perhaps these three friends 
resembled each other more in this natural characteristic 
than in any other ; and in withstanding its temptation 
lay their truest greatness, also kindred. 

Another man, wlio has threaded New-England society 
like a beam of golden sunshine gleaming in dark places, 
was just then coming under the observation of those 
whose eyes were ever open to see goodness. Robert Wa- 
terston did not owe his original impulse to Mr. Mann, to 
whom he afterwards looked as a guide, or to any other 
than his own pure and noble nature, and to parents who 
knew how to cherish what was loveliest in their children. 
The death of a little only sister, whom the boy loved 
dearly, first drew his attention to other children ; and he 
loved to gather them, and teach them to be good, when 
he was very young. When Mr. Mann first heard of him, he 



46 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

"was a "wonderfully successful Sunday-school teacher to a 
class of the most degraded Boston poor, and had drawn 
into the "work many noble persons kindled by his enthu- 
siasm ; and his father, in whose business employ he then 
was, gave him certain hours for visiting the families of 
the Sunday-school children he had assembled in Mr. Tay- 
lor's vestry, and with whom he kept up such close inter- 
course, that he knew which ran away from school, which 
told falsehoods, "which stole, &c. Mr. Mann listened to 
the story of this young man with swimming eyes, and in 
subsequent years was anxious to secure his services for 
one of his beloved Normal schools, feeling that they were 
to be the nurseries of true teaching, and that in such hands 
the moral culture which he craved for his " eighty thou- 
sand children " might be found. Mr. Waterston loves to 
say now that he owes the continued consecration of his 
life to the mission — for which others can see that Heaven 
designed him — partly to the influence of Mr. Mann's ca- 
reer, which stimulated his native tendencies. When he 
had passed from that which, to some eyes, seemed a hum- 
ble sphere, into a more prominent ministry, he was not 
corrupted by the worldly distinctions which gave him an 
opportunity to preach to the wealthy and the proud in- 
stead of to the lowly. and ignorant ; for he still held so 
faithfully to his allegiance to the poor and oppressed, that 
he took Mr. Mann's part boldly and earnestly when many 
other friends dared not give him their countenance ; and 
this moral courage was the first step towards his sepa- 
ration from his society, where indeed many v/ho had 
watched his more youthful career had always felt him to 
be out of place. It was as if Christ had left the fisher- 
men of Gralilee, and the multitude on the mountain, to 
preach common-places in the synagogue. Since Mr. Wa- 
terston's release from that bondage, he has had freedom 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 47 

to speak and act wherever a true man was most needed ; 
and that is in all the unpopular places where a fearless 
word is to be spoken for the right, or wherever little chil- 
dren are to be blessed and instructed. 

Another friend, whom Mr. Mann first met at a board- 
ing-house, and who attracted , him by singular nobleness 
of sentiment, was subsequently very dear to him, — Mr. 
Samuel Downer, always sagacious, independent, true to 
principle, unambitious, but full of insight into public 
men and measures, deep in heart, faithful in adversity. 

Dr. Woodward, principal of the Worcester Hospital, — 
which Mr. Mann had projected and carried through the 
House of representatives witli his one right arm, — and 
Dr. Todd of Hartford, also devoted to that benign char- 
ity, were a great delight to him, and objects of his enthu- 
siastic love. Of Dr. Todd he once said, that he was " a 
man one wished to embrace if he only met him in the 
street." Tliis gentleman had peculiar sympathies with 
him ; for he, too, had lost a young wife of lovely char- 
acter; and the mere knowledge of the fact which Dr. 
Todd communicated to him on one occasion, that drew 
his attention to Mr. Mann's domestic history, constituted 
a bond of union between them. 

Mr. Mann looked upon his acquaintance with Mr. 
Combe and his works as an important epoch in his life. 
That wise philosopher cleared away forever the rubbish 
of false doctrine which had sometimes impeded its action, 
and presented a philosophy of mind that commended it- 
self to his judgment : and yet there was not a servile sur- 
render to his views ; for, although he considered Mr. 
Combe his master in reasoning power, he did not follow 
him to all his conclusions. Mr. Combe was rather de- 
void of imagination, and could believe nothing but what 



48 LIFE OF H0E4CE MANN. 

he could clearly understand. Mr. Mann had that " pass- 
port into Elysium; " and his reasoning power acted with 
it, arguing from the seen to the unseen, which is the ob- 
ject of faith. It was happiness enough for Mr. Combe to 
believe thoroughly in the improvability of the race ; and 
his conception of its possible attainments in wisdom and 
virtue took the place, to him, of a future life of endless 
progress : but Mr. Mann had the assurance within him- 
self that this life, with all its possible ameliorations and 
capabilities of earthly attainment, was but the vestibule 
of an existence which " the heart of man hath not con- 
ceived," and for which this condition, sometimes so mys- 
teriously wretched, is but a preparation. He believed 
God to be too benevolent to have created one soul which 
was not eventually to find him, and understand liim, so 
far as the finite can comprehend the Infinite. Present 
ignorance was but the reverse of a glorious future of 
ever-dawning intelligence. His own words often express 
this thought better than another's can do it for him, 
I give a few letters of this period. 

July, 1836. 
My dear Sister, — I learnt from a letter which I received from 

, and still more from her own lips when I met her at , 

and with perfect fulness and distinctness from your letter to me, 
what apprehensions and anxiety about the condition of my mind had 
been disturbing the peace of yours. I know that it is, on your part, 
an act of the purest love and affection to communicate to me your 
alarms and your desires. Nor, if you have such feehngs, would I on 
any account have you smother or conceal them. To each other let 
there be no hidden fold of the heart. If I act up to this principle, 
I cannot forbear to say that this knowledge of the state of your mind 
has given me serious discjuietude. I should be false to all the feel- 
ings of a brother if I could, without pain, see you either pursuing 
a course of conduct, or adopting a system of opinions, the inevitable 
consequence of which must be to render you unhappy. I know 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 49 

there are minds which can contemplate the unutterable and eternal 
suffering — a suffering equally without limit in degree and in dura- 
tion — of a large portion of the human race with feelings of indiflFer- 
ence ; indeed, it sometimes seems as if they contemplated it with a 
kind of horrible complacency ; it always being understood that they 
themselves are to be spectators only, not sufferers. But you, my 
dear sister, thank God, have no such humanity. It would be im- 
possible for you to know of any high degree of suffering in any large 
portion of your fellow-beings, whether they were on the other side of 
the ocean or on the other side of the grave, without your own con- 
scious sympathy going forth and pervading that suffering, and feel- 
ing it as though it were inflicted on your own spirit, at least in a 
degree. I see, in the adoption, by a mind like yours, of such doc- 
trines as those to which you so plainly refer, the residue of life filled 
with anxiety and ten-or ; at least for your friends, if not for yourself 
I know you can never break your mind into such a submission to 
the supposed will of God as not to tremble and agonize when you 
see the torture applied to others, whether you see it with the bodily 
or with the mental eye. It is this knowledge of the inevitable efiect 
of such a faith upon a nature like yours that gives me pain. I 
claim no superior sensibihty to the fate of others over the mass of my 
fellow-men ; but I know that, to my nature, there can be no com- 
pensation in the highest happiness, and that of the longest duration, 
for the endless and remediless misery of a single sentient thing. No : 
though the whole offspring of the Creator, with the exception of one 
solitary being, were gathered into a heaven of unimaginable blessed- 
ness, while that one solitary being, wide apart in some region of im- 
mensity, however remote, were wedded to immortal pain, even then, 
just so soon as the holy principle of love sprung up in the hearts of 
that happy assembly, just so soon would they forget their joy, and 
forget their God, and the whole universe of them, as one spirit, 
gather round and weep over the sufferer. My nature revolts at the 
idea of belonging to a universe in which there is to be never-ending 
anguish. That nature never can be made to look on it with com- 
posure. That nature may indeed be annihilated, and another of 
similar form be created, and receive a similar name, as I might re- 
move one of the lamps by which I am now writing, and substitute a 

4 



50 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

similar one in its place ; but my nature, that which constitutes me, 
shrinks from an existence where any such thing is ever to come to 
its consciousness. 

You say that our love to man should arise or flow from supreme 
love to God. I do not think you had a definite idea in your mind 
when you wrote that sentence. If God be the greatest and the best 
of beings, then, indeed, should we strive to expand and dilate our 
conceptions of him, and love will rise in our hearts at once ; but that 
emotion, after all, is a very different one from what we must feel 
towards our fellow-men. God needs none of our aid, — our fellow- 
men need it constantly ; he is infinitely superior to us, — our fellow- 
men are our equals, sometimes our inferiors ; to his happiness we 
can add nothing, — to theirs much. We know it is the duty of the 
powerful to give strength to the weak ; of those who have abun- 
dance to impart to the needy ; of the wise to instruct the inex- 
perienced. It is against the whole analogy of nature, and against 
every clear perception of duty, to despoil the destitute in order to 
give to him who already has a redundance, and to make the feeble 
perform not only their own tasks, but also the labors of the healthful 
and vigorous. We are, to be sure, to love God ; yet it is not for 
his welfare, but for our own. The individual who does not feel that 
love, is bereft of a source of unfailing happiness ; but he may still 
perform the first of duties towards his fellow-men : and much higher 
do I believe he stands in the scale of moral being, who faithfully 
devotes himself to the welfare of his kind, though his communion 
with his Maker may be feeble and interrupted, than the man whose 
contemplations are so fastened upon the Deity, that he forgets those 
children of the Deity who require his aid. So far as we can derive 
strength in the performance of our duties by contemplating the per- 
fect nature of God, or by dwelling intently upon the example of 
Jesus Christ, so far it is our duty to do it ; and should we be trans- 
lated to a world where our fellow-beings can no longer be benefited 
by our efforts, then, indeed, it would be our duty and our pleasure 
to regard the supreme perfection with supreme love. But, while we 
are on earth, the burden of our duties is towards man. This is the 
entire texture of the New Testament. Where else in the whole 
hook is there such anxious repetition as in one of the last injunctions 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 51 

of Christ ? — " Lovest thou me ? If thou lovest me, feed my lambs ; ' ' 
and again, "If thou lovest me, feed my sheep ;^' and again, the 
third time, " Feed my sheep." 

My sister, I have looked at the world from the side of a grave 
that has swallowed up my happiness. For months afterward, I 
daily and hourly yearned for death as much as ever a famishing 
infant yearned for the breast of its mother. But, during aU that 
time, I felt not a moment's remorse because I had not loved God 
more. I felt, indeed, that it was a great and irreparable misfortune 
that I had not been taught the existence of a God worthy of being 
loved. All the regrets I had were that I had not acted differently 
towards mankind. That was a condition of mind, if there can be 
any such condition upon earth, to reveal to a man the sources and 
the objects of duty. What we learn from books, even what we 
think we are taught in the Bible, may be mistake or misapprehension : 
but the lessons we learn from our own consciousness are the very 
voice of the Being that created us ; and about it can there be any 
mistake ? I would plead with you on this subject, not so much on 
my own account, for that would be selfish, but on your account, and 
especially on account of the children, so much of whose happiness 
will depend upon your teachings. 

Dear sister, farewell. g_ jl_ 

Boston, Dec. 9, 1836. 

My dear Friend, — How wofuUy long it is since I have heard 
from you ! What have I done to deserve the chastisement of si- 
lence? . . . 

I thought you would have an ocean of gladsome feelings to tell 
me of, after your visit to Concord. Mr. Emerson, I am sure, must 
be perpetually discovering richer worlds than those of Columbus or 
Herschel. He explores, too, not in the scanty and barren region of 
our physical firmament, but in a spiritual firmament of illimitable 
extent, and compacted of treasures. I heard his lecture last evening. 
It was to human life what Newton's " Principia " was to mathematics. 
He showed me what I have long thought of so much, — how much 
more can be accomplished by taking a true view than by great 
intellectual energy. Had Mr. Emerson been set down in a wrong 
place, it may be doubted whether he would ever have found his way 



52 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

to the riglat point of view ; but that he now certainly has done. As a 
man stationed in the sun would see all the planets moving round it 
in one direction and in perfect harmony, while to an eye on the earth 
their motions are full of crossings and retrogradations ; so he, from 
his central position in the spiritual world, discovers harmony and 
order when others can discern only confusion and irregularity. His 
lecture, last evening, was one of the most splendid manifestations of 
a truth-seeking and truth -developing mind I ever heard. (Dr. 
Walter Channing, who sat beside me, said it made his head ache.) 
Though his language was transparent, yet it was almost impossible to 
catch the great beauty and proportions of one truth before another 
was presented. 

I have been to see your great Incarnation of the Good and True 
one evening since his return to the city. Allow me to say that I 
think the Dr.* endangers your salvation more than all other things 
united. That much-abused being who has such an unenviable repu- 
tation for planning and carrying on all the mischief of this world, 
and who, by the way, if he is half as bad as is alleged, must be 
highly delighted at the exalted opinions which are entertained of his 
success, — he knows better than to try to tempt you by any thing 
selfish or by any mercenary motives. I don't believe he will ever 
attempt to ply you with luxurious apathy, and ease, and a worldly in- 
difference synonymous with a want of human sympathy. He knows 
his woman too well : you are assailed on the other side. He makes 
you acquainted with persons, who, upon a single point, may have a 
little more than such a scanty modicum of merit as belongs to the 
generality of people, and then he makes you believe they are models, 
paragons, angels. Then you render a sort of divine honor, and are 
forthwith accused and punished for idolatry. But this is a digres- 
sion. I only meant to say that I broached my heresies about mir- 
acles to the Dr.; and by degrees, as fast as he can bear it, I mean to 
let him know how wicked I am. He preached last Sunday, and it 
was as though his urn had been freshly filled from a fountain of ever- 
lasting love. 

Excuse this scrawl, written for the sole purpose of condemning and 
punishing you for so long a silence. 

Yours affectionately, g_ -^ 

* Dr. William E. Channing. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 53 

Jan. 24, 1837. 
Mt dear Friend, — ... 

Probably neither you nor our sister M, ever had so certain and 
sure a correspondent as I am, — that is so certain and sure not to 
write when he was bid to. I surely am a man, (so far as your and 
her letters are concerned,) who reaps without sowing much ; and I 
do not perceive that my harvests are any less abundant, and rich, 
and nourishing than if I had paid the price of previous culture. 

At nine o'clock this very evening, I flung myself down in my 
chair, for the first time this year, with the feeling that I had any 
choice among the things I might do. The bird, which for a month 
has been struck from battledore to battledore, fell for the first time 
on the ground, where it will be suflfered to lie, I hope, till to-morrow 
morning. 

I came, at nine o'clock aforesaid, from Warren-street Chapel. The 
lecture is spilt, and nothing can gather it up again. Now, laying 
my hand on my left breast, I do asseverate that I did desire to send 
the lecture to you before one syllable of it should ever have struck 
any other mortal tympanum : but that was impossible ; for though I 
sat up almost all night, last night, I did not finish it until after six 
o'clock this evening ; and part of it I read for the first time to the 
audience. 

By way of confession, let me tell you that never have I writ- 
ten any thing which cost me so much labor, and, perhaps I can 
say, produced so little effect. The truth is, as I have often told 
you, I am like a man overtaken by a premature night : he not only 
goes slower, but loses time by going circuitously. I should like to 
have you see the lecture, because I have faith that you would deal 
sincerely with me, and tell me to the uttermost point and pendicle 
what strikes you as too short or too long, too high or too low, therein ; 
and if you will prescribe any way by which I can despatch it, pro- 
vided you can return it forthwith, — for I may deliver it again next 
week at Rosbury, — I will send it to you without delay. 

You always make up such a face at the egotism, as you call it, of 
your own letters, I wonder what you will say of this. 

I have no particular thing to tell you as to aught that has hap- 
pened either outside or inside of me. One of the Sundays, when 



54 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

you wondered where I was, I was at my mother's, who was very ill, 
and still remains ill. She is now very old and infirm ; and strange, 
— horribly strange, as it seems to me, — I should not shrink were I 
to hear that she had escaped from this dreary prison-house. Indeed, 
that is the aspect in which the living or the dying of almost all now 
habitually strikes me. My first feeling is, not that ill, but that good 
fortune has overtaken the departed. I used to look at the dead as 
going out of the world : now my first impression is that they are 
coming out of it. . . . 

To C. Sumner, Esq. 

Febeuaet, 1837. 

My dear Friend, — I found a note on my table, this evening, 
written in so deprecatory a style, that I fear I may have appeared 
to press the subject of your making an address indiscreetly. If I 
have so done, I hope you will pardon me. 

My attention having been now for many years drawn to all that 
variety and enormity of evils which make up the hell of intemper- 
ance, I have acquired what the artists would call a quick eye in dis- 
covering them ; the consequence of which is, that, wherever I go, 
some species of that generic horror afilicts me : and who can see it, 
or a ten thousandth part of it, unmoved ? 

Knowing too, as I do, that if the talented, respected, and influ. 
ential young men of this city, even to the number of one hundred, 
would stand in the pass of Thermopyla3, that worst of evils might 
be excluded forever, I have sometimes felt as if I had a right, in 
the sacred name of humanity, to call upon every one to contribute 
his assistance in so beneficent a work ; and I am aware that I some- 
times speak to my friends as if they must yield obedience to the 
highest law of their nature, and perform this duty. Believing too, 
as I do, that the infidel towards God is more open to recovery than 
the infidel towards man, — he, I mean, who does not believe in the 
recuperative power of the race, ■ — I know I am liable to make use 
of strong expressions, which may seem very extravagant if taken 
without the general views which are in my mind ; and it is more than 
probable, that, in speaking to you on this subject, I have exposed 
myself to misconstruction. But all these things I hope you will be 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 55 

good enougli to overlook. ... Do not believe that I would interfere 
with the freedom of not-speaking any more than I would with the 
freedom of speech. 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



April 29, 1837. 

My dear Friend, — It is now long since I have written you. 
I opine that you may not be unwilling to hear from me ; therefore I 
write. That you are well, I hope ; that you are too good for your 
own comfort, I know ; that you will ever learn to put alloy enough 
into your gold to deprive it of its ductility, and give it a consistence 
adapted to human uses, I question. Ilium f wit. And so, to-mor- 
row night, will be said of the present session of what, in the magnil- 
oquent style of our forefathers, used to be called the Great and 
General Court. The Senate Chamber will be deserted. Its seats 
will be vacant. Its vaults will echo to the lightest tread. And 
that vast, coliseum-like hall of the House, which to-day has been 
compacted with life, — fermenting, tossing, raging, — will be like 
the silent interior of a pyramid. 

Now I must tell you some things that have come to pass during 
the "hundred days." We have passed a most excellent license- 
law, adapted, as I think, to the present state of the Temperance 
reform. It prohibits the sale of all intoxicating liquors on the Salh 
bath. That day has hitherto been profaned and desecrated above 
all other days in the week. There has been more intoxication that 
day than on the other six. If I may be allowed to call names, I 
think it has been the Devil's benefit ! His curtain rose early, his 
acts were numerous, his scenes combined every variety of wretched- 
ness and guilt : yet throughout the whole there reigned a dreadful 
unity, such as no other drama ever equalled ; and, at the horrid 
denouement, the whole — stage, proscenium, and cavea — were 
covered with death. 

The bill passed by crushing majorities on both sides, — in the 
House, about 240 to 17 ; and in the Senate, 23 to 6. It contains 
other provisions of a most salutary nature. When I signed the act 
to-day in my official capacity, [Mr. Mann was then President of the 



56 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Senate,] the whole history of the fierce contest which was waged 
five years ago this winter in the House, when I stood almost alone 
in the front of the battle, rose like a vision before me. At that 
time there were but two representatives from the city of Boston 
who voted with me : one was Dr. J. B. Flint ; the other the venera- 
ble old Major Melville, " the last of the Cocked Hats," who was a 
member of the Boston Tea-party in ante-Revolutionary days. 

You asked me,, some time since, what I meant by the triumph of 
the Temperance reform, and whether we must not always see ex- 
cess. What I meant by the triumph of the Temperance reform 
was the entire prohibition of the sale of ardent spirits as a drink, 
the abrogation of the laws authorizing the existence of public places 
for its use or sale ; thus taking away those frequent temptations to 
men whose appetites now overcome their resolutions. There are 
thousands and tens of thousands of inebriates who never would have 
been so, had the tavern and the dram-shop been five miles off from 
their homes. 

When I tell you what has been done for the hospital at Worces- 
ter, you will be superstitious, and exclaim, " It has had an angel." 
Dr. Woodward's salary has been raised six hundred dollars ; wLich 
will be the means, I think, of securing his invaluable services for 
some time longer. The Legislature have appropriated ten thousand 
dollars (I write the words out instead of figures, lest you should 
think I have mistaken in the matter of a cipher) to finish the build- 
ings, so that, when done, they wiU accommodate say two hundred 
and thirty ; seven thousand dollars for the purchase of land, so that 
our inmates can enjoy the advantages of agricultural employment, 
which we regard very highly ; and three thousand dollars for a 
chapel, where the oil of religion may be poured in a flood over the 
ocean of insanity ; and eight thousand dollars to meet the current 
expenses of the institution. All this was done without a single 
audible murmur of opposition ; nay, with the greatest apparent cordi- 
ality towards the hospital. Besides this, the Senate has empowered 
its clerk to republish all the reports of the institution in one volume, 
together with other papers, as he may see fit, with an ad libitum 
authority as to the number of the edition. Enough will be printed 
to be distributed liberally in every State, and also to send to Eu- 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 57 

rope. Ah ! I never tbought of this when, in 1830, we stormed 
the dungeons of inhumanity. The outer gates are broken down ; 
and some of the captives are coming forth every day to enjoy the 
light and the beauty of the physical, and the holier light and beau- 
ty of the moral universe : yet here in this midnight silence, as I 
wiite, I hear from their more interior cells, as audibly as if it were 
the voice of the thunder-cloud, the voices of many victims awaiting 
in unconsciousness the day of their deliverance. 

Those who saw Mr. Mann at this time, when he felt 
that the cause so dear to him was firmly established in 
the hearts and consciences of the people, well remember 
the radiance of his presence. It seemed as if life, joy, 
and hope had rolled back upon him from the realm of 
darkness in which he had seen them swallowed up. The 
cause always continued to excite his deepest enthusiasm ; 
and, as Miss Dix extended it from the borders of his 
native State — with all whose dungeons he at one time 
had made himself so familiar — to the borders of the civ- 
ilized world, his worship of her divine jDrowess waxed, and 
became a part of his consciousness ; he counting it happi- 
ness enough, as he has sometimes said, " to be the lackey 
to do her bidding in the work." He loved to picture her 
entering alone realms of darkness where man did not 
dare to set his foot, and reading words of cheer from the 
Book of Life, or with a hymn upon her lips, quelling the 
fiercest raging of madness. 

After the chapel was added to the hospital at Worces- 
ter, when that large and motley assembly, many of 
whom needed confinement and watching at other times, 
sat quiet and orderly during divine service, with no 
other check than their own associations with the scene, 
and the calm, penetrating blue eye and majestic brow of 
Dr. Woodward, who always looked like Jupiter Benig- 
nus, as he sat or stood by the side of the clergyman, 



58 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

it was a great pleasure to Mr. Mann so to time his visits 
as to enjoy the wonderful spectacle, and feel the blessed 
reflex influence distil drop by drop upon his own heart. 
He was personally beloved there also, and his presence 
always had a salutary influence. 



CHAPTER IL 

THE SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. 

N speaking of Mr. Mann as an educator, I enter into 
his inmost life ; for that cause, of all others, roused 
into action all his powers. He had always been interested 
in reforms ; but no cause in which his duties as a citizen 
involved him held the same rank in his estimation as this. 
His interest and action in the cause of insane hospitals 
had deepened his insight into the primary causes and 
hinderances of human development ; and the study of 
" Combe's Constitution of Man," which he met with in 
1837, added new fuel to the fire of his enthusiasm. 
Although life had lost its charms for him since the death 
of his beloved wife, his reserved power was, unconsciously 
to himself, lying ready to be evoked by some great aim. 
After the stunning effect of that blow had passed away 
in a limited degree, he began a private journal, which 
covers the first six years of his secretaryship ; and a few 
extracts from that will show in what spirit he undertook 
it. But his own words, even in a private journal, do no 
justice to the zeal and devotion with which he prosecuted 
the work. The first conviction of his early manhood had 
been the necessity of head and heart culture in the citi- 
zens of a republic ; and, through every period of his life, 
the conviction grew, till it culminated in a fervor of action, 
which obstacles could not cool, and which no selfish or 
personal considerations could abate. If I can well describe 

59 



60 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

the sentiment that animated him, I feel sure that I shall 
kindle in the young, to whom I have dedicated this work, 
a generous emulation to go and do likewise, aiding rather 
than contending with each other at every step. If I can 
make it apparent how he understood the central principle 
of our religion, " Do unto others as ye would that others 
should do unto you," I shall feel that I have succeeded 
in an endeavor which costs me too much to be made for 
any lesser motive. Only those who knew him vitally 
know how truly he lived to that end, and how hard he 
labored to improve the relations of the young and inex- 
perienced with the older and more experienced. Only 
through the young could he work out reforms which must 
underlie society before the next step in human advance- 
ment can be taken ; for it is the effect of practical unbelief, 
such as pervades what is poetically called " the world," 
to deaden hope and generous resolve, and to dim the light 
of the ideal man which burns in every soul till it is covered 
up and quenched by false doctrine, and by the " rubbish 
and muddy waters of custom." 

One must understand all ecclesiastical and sacerdotal 
history, or the animus of it, to estimate the full effect of 
the ages in which might constituted right, with those few 
exceptions which illuminate history and redeem the race 
from the stigma of a failure. Only a great soid can see 
that God has made no failure ; thougli happily the simple 
heart believes it, as we see exemplified by the filial trust 
and faith of the lowly and pious sufferers, who, in all 
times, have taught us that God speaks in the humble and 
waiting soul. 

Education, religious and political freedom, then, were 
the watchwords of his life and action. All collateral evils 
would vanish if these things could be established. In one 
sense, he cannot be said to have sacrificed himself to them; 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 61 

for he identified himself with tliem, and cared little for 
any thing else. To work for them was liis happiness. 
All culture, all livhig, that could be transmuted into 
material for their advancement, were dear to him, if they 
were not to be monopolized by the few at the expense of 
the many ; for there was nothing beautiful or of good 
repute which was to be selfishly appropriated. He wished 
every child of God to be so situated as to lay hold of the 
means of self-improvement ; and with sledge-hammer and 
battle-axe ho would beat down the obstacles, if they did 
not yield to the arguments of love and truth and justice. 
He considered it the first duty of government to put these 
means within the reach of every one. He did not believe 
that men were created to minister to their own pleasures, 
or even to their own self-improvement merely ; indeed, he 
did not believe that any self-improvement could be vital 
which did not consciously ally itself with the improve- 
ment of others. He believed that man was created for 
ends of which he only obtains a faint and far-off glimpse, 
his consciousness of the great destiny that awaits him 
gradually deepening as he advances ; that for this great 
destiny he is endowed with faculties of indefinite progress ; 
and that he is so allied socially, that the advance of one 
cannot go on successfully without the advance of the 
whole. When he looked upon the inequalities of human 
condition, he saw that it was the consequence of man's 
not using worthily his God-given gifts ; and that the 
stimulus of acting for the good of each and all caused 
these gifts to become divine in their proportions. 

Feeble in health, and still more feeble in animal spirits, 
there were times when the exhaustive nature of his labors, 
and of the way in which he performed them, made it im- 
possible for him to write down his own purposes and 
emotions for his own perusal. His journal was written 



62 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

rather as a relief from depression, than as a full exponent 
of his thoughts. He was not himself aware, that, while 
under that cloud, the calls of humanity often touched 
him as with fire from heaven. Nevertheless, a man's own 
words are always an expression of himself, if written in 
sincerity and simplicity. If he had been as much ani- 
mated and inspired by his own eloquence upon this sub- 
ject as others were, we should have had brilliant para- 
graphs recording successful performances ; but he never 
appreciated justly his own elBforts. No sooner had he 
made an effort than he was tormented by a sense of its 
inadequacy to the demands of the occasion ; and especially 
when ill health and sorrow held such sway over him, 
his exactions of himself were fearful. He has sometimes 
been called " pitiless " in his requisitions of others : he 
was so in regard to himself, never counting his own ease, 
comfort, or even life, as of any importance, if he thought 
the sacrifice of them could further the ends of any cause 
in which he had embarked with a disinterested purpose. 
It was not that he imagined that the world could not get 
on without him, but that he saw so much to be 
done, and so few willing to do the work, that he took 
more than his share upon himself. He was content to 
work at the underpinnings of great interests, sure that, if 
these were well laid, the superstructures would be safe. 
This characterized his later as well as earlier efforts ; for 
when, in subsequent years, he transferred himself to a 
field in which much less had been accomplished than in 
Massachusetts, he was still content to begin at the begin- 
ning, and made new and deeper explorations into the 
kingdom of ignorance than any he had before been led to 
make. 

But I will not anticipate. 

In Massachusetts the common-school system had degen- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 63 

erated in practice from the original theoretic view of the 
early Pilgrim Fathers. Common and equal opportunities 
of education for all was the primitive idea of those men 
who had been so signally made to feel how unequally 
human rights were shared. The opportunities, unpar- 
alleled in the world's history, which the establishment of 
the Federal Union had opened to all classes of men to ob- 
tain wealth, had caused this idea to be nearly lost sight of ; 
and the common schools had been allowed to degenerate 
into neglected schools for the poorer classes only, instead 
of becoming nurseries of democratic institutions for all 
classes. For, as wealthier and better educated citizens 
turned away from them, the best talent and education 
were not secured to carry them on. 

The word " classes " is not a good democratic word. 
Under our institutions, there should be but two, — the 
educated and the ignorant; and the latter should be an 
ever-decreasing one, gradually merging into the other. Mr. 
Mann's wish was to restore the good old custom of hav- 
ing the rich and the poor educated together ; and for that 
end he desired to make the public schools as good as 
schools could be made, so that the rich and the poor 
might not necessarily be coincident with the educated 
and the ignorant. As long as poverty necessitates igno- 
rance, society will always be divided on a wrong principle. 
Poverty may in itself be honorable; and it is a well- 
observed fact, that out of its ranks have risen the most 
distinguished Americans. The self-reliance and self- 
denial consequent upon limited means is one of the finest 
elements of education. Education is the best security 
for that competence which holds the golden mean be- 
tween riches and poverty, affording time and opportunity 
for cultivation of all the powers, while it does not preclude 
the necessity of industry and exertion. For the temporal 



64 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

and spiritual advancement of society, Mr. Mann felt that 
the vocation of educator was the highest possible one in 
a republic. He approached it with the deepest awe and a 
sense of the highest responsibility, gladly relinquishing 
senatorial honors and wealth for its arduous but inter- 
esting duties. 

Very exhausting labors had preceded his acceptance of 
the office of Secretary of the Board of Education. He 
had found the practice of the law very onerous ; for he 
regarded the legal profession as one by whose conscien- 
tious practice a man wields great power for truth and 
justice. But he was unable to leave it for more conge- 
nial pursuits until he had discharged certain obligations 
already alluded to. When he assumed the office, he was 
wholly free from debts thus incurred, but nearly penni- 
less ; and had passed three years of his sad lonely life in 
his law-office, without even the solace of a borrowed 
domestic life such as can be found in a boarding-house. 

Most of his friends, who thought wealth, the position 
which it insures, and the prospects of political advance- 
ment that lay fairly before him, the most desirable objects 
of life, considered him foolish and visionary in making 
the change from a lucrative profession. A few, who 
knew the spirit he was of, rejoiced in his decision, al- 
though his present aim promised no worldly honors. 



CHAPTER III. 

JOURNAL. 

GIVE a few extracts from his journal, chiefly to show 
the rise and progress of the new measures taken to 
carry out the original idea of universal education. The 
sad tone that pervades it was natural to him under his 
circumstances ; but his native buoyancy of spirit and 
strength of will carried him through his great labors tri- 
umphantly. 

May 4, 1837. I have long had an inefficient desire to keep a jour- 
nal. This desire has always been just at the most unlucky point, — 
so strong as to make me regret the omission, and yet too weak to 
induce me to supply it. According to a law of optics, the particular 
inconvenience because it was near has seemed larger than the gen- 
eral benefit because it was remote. This, however, is an illusion of 
the senses, which it is the duty of the reason to rectify ; for, in the 
eye of reason, proximity and distance are alike discarded, and every 
thing is estimated at its intrinsic value. 

I wish to keep some remembrancer (daily when I am able, less 
frequently when I must) of the states of my mind, and of the most 
important transactions in which I may be concerned. I can put 
that upon paper, which, if I were to whisper even to the best friend, 
might expose me to a suspicion of vanity; and I think I have 
honesty enough to record in a diary against myself what my 
pride might induce me to conceal even at the confessional of the 
closest friendship. Besides, in this world of mixed motives, may it 
not be right to avail myself of the reflection, that the night shall 
record the actions of the day, in order to give form and heart to good 
purposes, and to impose restraint upon bad ones ? Is it wise to deny 

5 65 



66 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

any helps whicb can assist in ascending the eminences of virtue ? 
In this attempt, I hope I may be sincere : for what motive have I to 
assume to be what my own consciousness would deny ? and what pos- 
sible fear can actuate me, save that fear which is the beginning of 
wisdom ? My future days are, hke the succeeding pages of this book, 
untouched, alike receptive of good or evil. There is this difference, 
however, — that the record kept in the mind is necessarily a true rec- 
ord. That cannot be forged, falsified, distorted, or discolored ; and 
that is the record which I am hereafter to have spread open before 
my eyes. It is my belief that each individual will hereafter remem- 
ber all that he has ever done, said, or thought. Tliat is the hook 
of judgment. May that volume be so filled, that it may in after- 
periods of existence be unrolled and inspected with pleasure ! and 
may this volume be a transcript of that ! 

Mag 5. I thought to-day would furnish me nothing to record : but, 
this afternoon, I was most agreeably surprised in meeting my friend B. 
Taft, jun., Esq., of Uxbridge, with whom I was for several years asso- 
ciated in the erection and direction of the Worcester Hospital ; and 
all our intercourse has left nothing behind which I do not now recol- 
lect with pleasure. How much was that commission indebted to his 
skill and practical judgment ! His good sense saved money, saved 
embarrassment, and, in so doing, saved reputation : better even than 
that, I think it made some. If ever I performed a disinterested act, 
it was in my efforts to found that institution ; and I have been fully 
rewarded therefor. Indeed, I have observed that acts emanating 
from worthy motives have almost invariably yielded me an ample 
requital of pleasure ; while those which sprung from a selfish motive, 
however intellectually judicious, have, at least in their connections 
and remoter results, ended in annoyance or injury. Is this fancy ? 
or is there some mysterious, indissoluble connection between embryo 
motive and physical result, just as there is between the invisible, im- 
palpable quality of a germ, and the self-exposing, self-diffusing char- 
acter of the fruit ? Surely it is not above or beyond the wisdom of the 
Deity to ordain such a connection. And physical science affords a 
thousand instances where we discern causes, not by knowing the pro- 
cess, but only by witnessing the uniformity of results. Will not the 
time come to us all, by an adamantine law of necessity, when we shall 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 67 

be compelled to analyze all our own former motives, and to trace them 
to their results, and when the present invisible continuity between 
beginning and end shall be made manifest ? Surely there is much, 
very much, in the deductions of experience, to authorize this broad 
generalization. And does not the ai'gument, a priori, from a know- 
ledge of the Deity, lead to the same conclusion ? These truths — for 
I believe they are truths — are to me revelation. This species of 
revelation cannot be gainsaid. It does not depend upon historic 
proof. It was not designed to be transmissible from one generation 
to another. It had a higher design, — that of being personal, and 
therefore indisputable, to each and all. 

May 6. This morning I engaged and sent to Worcester an ele- 
gant two-horse carriage to be used at the hospital to give rides to 
the female patients. The exercise they will thereby attain will be 
directly beneficial to their physical health, there is no doubt ; and 
the agreeable emotions excited by pleasant rides in a fine-looking 
carriage, will, in an indirect way, be not less promotive of mental 
health. 

Dined to-day with Edmund D wight, Esq., for the purpose of con- 
ferring with him on the late law authorizing the appointment of a 
Board of Education. Mr. Dwight had the civility, or the incivility 
(I do not doubt that his motives would place the act under the former 
category) , to propose that / should be Secretary of the Board, — a 
most responsible and important office, bearing more effectually, if well 
executed, upon the coming welfare of the State, than any other office 
in it. For myself, I never had a sleeping nor a waking dream that 
I should ever think of myself, or be thought of by any other, in 
relation to that station. Query, therefore, could he have been sin- 
cere in his suggestion ? 

May 7. Sunday. This day has furnished me with no incident, 
nor excited any train of thought that I now remember, which would 
be available, if recorded, for future use. Have I lost a day ? 

" Count that day lost wliose low-declining sun 
Views at thy hand no worthy action done." 

May 8. Have read to-day the first article in the 130th number 
of the "Edinburgh Review," upon Lord Brougham's "Discourse 



68 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

on Natural Theology;" a most deeply interesting paper, — elevated, 
tolerant, philosophical. I know it is thought by many, perhaps 
by most professing Christians, to be a fatal heresy, and worthy of 
being purged by fire; but, for myself, natural religion stands as 
pre-eminent over revealed religion as the deepest experience over 
the lightest hearsay. The power of natural religion is scarcely be- 
gun to be understood or appreciated. The force and cogency of the 
evidence, the intensity and irresistible ness of its power, are not 
known, because its elements are not developed and explained. It 
gives us more than an intellectual conviction, — it gives us a feel- 
ing of truth; and however much the lights of revealed religion 
may have guided the generations of men amid this darkness of mor- 
tality, yet I believe that the time is coming when the light of nat- 
ural religion will be to that of revealed as the rising sun is to the 
day-star that preceded it. 

May 9. I have been to-day to Worcester, and found the affairs 
of the hospital prospering. Oh ! how should I be able to bear the 
burden of life, were I not sustained by the conviction of having 
done something for the alleviation of others ? Surely Nature sends 
no such solace for our own sufferings as when she inspires us with a 
desire to relieve the sufferings of others. How wonderfully she has 
hnked the feeling of self-restoration with an efiicient desire for the 
restoration of others ! 

May 10. A day of drudgery without any particular pain, and 
with only a single pleasure. I called just at night to inform a poor 
old mother about her daughter, whom I yesterday saw at the hospi- 
tal, that she already showed decided symptoms of relief and im- 
provement : whereat the old motherly heart began to ovei-flow with 
grateful gaiTulity ; and, as I was the nearest object, she poured it out 
in fioods upon me. Is it not a pretty good sign if one feels ashamed 
at receiving more praise than he deserves ? If others hear it, it may 
gratify vanity or enhance reputation ; but, when one hears it all 
alone, he has nothing to do but to think whether he does not know 
better than to believe it. However, if one has not sufScient moral 
sensibility to be ashamed of praise which he does not deserve, then 
I suppose he would enjoy it ; and if he is ashamed of being ex- 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 69 

tolled beyond his merits, then does not the justness of the feeling 
of shame argue a condition of mind of which he may feel proud ? 

May 12. This day I carried a female fx'iend to see the Institu- 
tion of the Blind, and was delighted with her delight. Indeed, 
who can witness the natural privation of sight, and think of all its 
lamentable train of consequences, and then behold those successful 
acts of skill and benevolence by which that privation has been sup- 
plied, without deep and abiding gratification ? K the powers of the 
human mind and the resources of wealth were directed to ameliorate 
the condition of the unfortunate and the afflicted, instead of being 
devoted to selfish and sensual gratifications, what a different world 
this would be ! and, in the quantity and quality of happiness pos- 
sessed, those who bestowed the favors would be as great gainers as 
those who received them. 

May 13. To-day Deacon Grant and I concluded that it would be 
expedient to hold a consultation, with a few of the most judicious 
friends of temperance, upon the subject of the means most eligible 
and expedient for the enforcement of the late license-law, which pro- 
hibits the sale of any intoxicating drinks on the Sabbath. Each of 
us, therefore, undertook to send out a few invitations to particular 
persons, inviting their attendance to-morrow (Sunday) evening at 
the office of the Visitors of the Poor, to devise measures to secure 
if possible, even in this city, the execution of the above-mentioned 
law. How incalculable, how unimaginable, an amount of private 
happiness and public welfare depends upon the faithful administra- 
tion of that law ! How little does that public think even of its exist- 
ence ! When will the human mind be instructed to arrange things 
upon a scale according to their intrinsic value, so as for the future 
to refuse the precedence to trivial and transitory objects over univer- 
sal and immortal interests ? 

May 14. A meeting has been held this evening, as contem- 
plated yesterday ; and I have been appointed chairman of a commit- 
tee to have an interview to-morrow with the ]Mayor of the city upon 
the subject of providing means for causing the late license-law to be 
observed in the city. 

May 15. Called on the Mayor in pursuance of yesterday's ap- 



70 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

pointment. He speaks decidedly and encouragingly. May his 
words become things ! Had an interesting conversation with Dr. 
Channing on the times. His perception of the moral aspect of sub- 
jects is so intense, that it becomes almost exclusive ; but, as moral- 
ity is the central point of this earthly universe, he who selects that 
portion, even though he does not see all, yet sees more than any one 
else. His is a noble ministry. Supposing, what is sometimes said 
to be true, that he is a man of one idea, yet is not one life well 
spent in developing one idea, especially if it be that great idea upon 
which he has expended his powers? Had each man, great and 
small, developed an idea, great or small, what a wise world we 
should have about this anno Domini 1837 ! 

3fay 18. . . . Spent this evening with Mr. Dwight, who showed 
me a letter from the Governor, proposing my nomination, with his, 
as a member of the Board of Education, provided for by a law of 
the last session. Mr. Dwight again urged upon me a consideration 
of the subject of my being Secretary of the Board. Ought I to think 
of filling this high and responsible office ? Can I adequately per- 
form its duties ? Will my greater zeal in the cause than that of 
others supply the deficiency in point of talent and information ? 
Whoever shall undertake that task must encounter privation, labor, 
and an infinite annoyance from an infinite number of schemers. He 
must condense the steam of enthusiasts, and soften the rock of the 
incredulous. What toil in arriving at a true system himself ! what 
toil in infusing that system into the minds of others ! How many 
dead minds to be resuscitated ! how many prurient ones to be 
soothed ! How much of mingled truth and error to be decompounded 
and analyzed ! What a spirit of perseverance would be needed to 
sustain hira all the way between the inception and the accomplish- 
ment of his objects ! But should he succeed ; should he bring 
forth the germs of greatness and of happiness which Nature has 
scattered abroad, and expand them into maturity, and enrich them 
with fruit ; should he be able to teach, to even a few of this genera- 
tion, how mind is a god over matter ; how, in arranging objects of 
desire, a subordination of the less valuable to the more is the great 
secret of individual happiness ; how the whole of life depends upon 
the scale which we form of its relative values, — could he do this. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 71 

what diffusion, wliat intensity, wliat perpetuity of blessings he would 
confer ! How would his beneficial influence upon mankind widen 
and deepen as it descended forever ! 

May 21. This afternoon, heard a most excellent sermon from 
Mr. Taylor on the duty of nonconformity to the world. It was 
compact with graphic delineations of fashionable and customary vices. 
What a wonderful man ! There is a natural language which com- 
municates to one mind the state or condition of another mind. In 
this lano'uao-e, words and sentences are subordinate instruments. 
Soul speaks to soal. Over this language Mr. Taylor has power. 
It is not embarrassed by rules of syntax. It makes itself understood 
in spite of all violation of those rules. 

May 23. Wrote to Dr. Woodward yesterday on the subject of 
receiving an insane woman of this city at the hospital. To day, re- 
ceived answer that she could be admitted. To-day, also, made appli- 
cation in behalf of another woman, belonging to Weymouth. Scarce 
a day passes in which I have not some call in reference to that insti- 
tution. They are all acceptable. These duties I perform with 
spontaneous alacrity and pleasure. Let me commune with myself, 
and see that no arrogant feeling of pride and self-complacency 
mingles with my emotions on these occasions. I cannot deny, in- 
deed, that to have been instrumental in furnishing means for allevi- 
ating such unimaginable forms of suffering is one of the few sources 
of earthly gratification which the consuming calamities of my life 
have not dried up. Nay, had it not been for a few such subjects 
of reflection to call off my thoughts when they were concentrating 
into despair, I think that long ere this I should have been driven 
into insanity and suicide. 

May 25. . . . To-day has been spent in reading that most valu- 
able book, " Combe on the Constitution of Man." When will 
truth be the standard of value ? 

May 26. The annual meeting of the Massachusetts Temperance 
Society took place this evening. Pretty well attended, and some . 
good speeches made. The cause progresses. I used to feel a faith 
in its ultimate triumph, as strong as a prophecy. The faith is now 
in a forward state of realization ; and what a triumph it will be ! 
not like a Roman triumph that made hearts bleed, and nations weep, 



72 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

and reduced armies to captivity, but one that heals hearts, and wipes 
tears from a nation's eyes, and sets captivity free. 

May 27. An official annunciation of the following gentlemen 
to constitute the Board of Education has this day been made; viz., 
James Gr. Carter, Emerson Davis, Edmund Dwight, Horace Mann, 
Edward A. Newton, Robert Kantoul, jun., Thomas Robbins, and 
Jared Sparks. Thus a portion of the duties of a most important 
office are devolved upon me. This I believe to be like a spring, 
almost imperceptible, flowing from the highest table-land, between 
oceans, which is destined to deepen and widen as it descends, 
diflfusing fertility and beauty in its course ; and nations shall dwell 
upon its banks. It is the first great movement towards an organized 
system of common education, which shall at once be thorough and 
universal. Every civilized State is as imperfectly organized, without 
a minister or secretary of instruction, as it would be without ministers 
or secretaries of State, Finance, War, or the Navy. Every child 
should be educated : if not educated by its own father, the State 
should appoint a father to it. I would much sooner surrender a 
portion of the territory of the Commonwealth to an ambitious and 
aggressive neighW than I would surrender the minds of its children 
to the dominion of ignorance. 

May 29. This evening, met Mr. Briggs and a number of other 
temperance gentlemen at the temperance house of Deacon Grant, 
the embodiment of the law and the practice of temperance. Father 
Taylor was there, with a world of beautiful material images corre- 
sponding with his world of beautiful spiritual ideas, — the noblest 
man I have ever known. 

May 30. An attempt this evening, about nine o'clock, to set fire 
to this building in the attic over the entry-way, between Mr. Loring's 
room and mine. Fortunately it was discovered early, and extin- 
guished. A gang of incendiaries infest the city. What a state of 
morals it reveals ! Is it possible that such things could be, if moral 
instruction were not infinitely below what it ought to be ? That 
passion against an individual might be so inflamed as to lead to such 
atrocities from a spirit of revenge, is sufficiently wonderful ; but that 
an enormity of that description should be perpetrated from the wan- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 73 

tonness of malignity, seems incredible. When will society, lilce a 
mother, take care of all her children ? 

May 31. General Election Day. How different it is to me from 
what it was when a boy ! Not one particle of my boyish mind seems 
to remain to establish identity. How perfect the change that may 
be wrought in us by new fortunes, new circumstances, and new 
views, leading to new pursuits ! What a topic of moralization is the 
change, of which I am now conscious, between my present and vay 
former self ! Memory alone connects the two together. 

June 1. Visited the navy-yard of Charlestown this afternoon witli 
a friend. What a magnificent product of human art and labor is a 
ship-of-war ! Were an inhabitant of some other planet to see a ship 
and a man side by side, would not he think the ship had made the 
man, rather than the man the ship? Yet, after all, there are, in my 
conceptions, painful considerations clustering round such an object, 
which even its magnificence cannot dispel. With all its vastness, it is 
only a more powerful engine for the destruction of human life. With 
its power of locomotion, it is only the more capacitated to seek out 
the objects of that destruction, wherever they may be, in any part of 
the world washed by the all-embracing ocean. If a thousandth part 
of what has been expended in war, and in preparing its mighty 
engines, had been devoted to the development of reason and the difiia- 
sion of Christian principles, nothing would have been known for cen- 
turies past of its terrors, its sufferings, its impoverishment, and its 
demoralization, but what was learnt from history. 

Jwie 3. Have completed to-day a cursory examination of the 
Plymouth-Colony Laws. I feel some disappointment in their perusal. 
They do not seem to me to evince so much forethought, sagacity, and 
comprehension of principles, as I had anticipated. Providence for the 
future is not so far-sighted ; and selfishness is less self-preserving and 
self-improving than I expected to find. Compared with the contem- 
porary legislation in the Massachusetts Colony, the advantage is 
strongly in favor of the latter. Schools seem to have occupied very 
little of their attention. Learning was not a prominent object of 
ambition. Great virtues and talents would have shed a higher 
lustre upon ofiice, and, one would suppose beforehand, would have 
superseded the necessity of enacting, that, "if a person chosen gov- 



74 LIFE OF HOEACE IIANN. 

ernor sbonld refuse to serve, he should be fined £20 for his delin*- 
quency " ! 

June 4. Sunday. If religion consists in going to meeting, I 
have been non-religious to-day. The truth is, that hearing common 
sermons gives my piety the consumption. Ministers seem to me not 
to care half so much about the salvation of mankind as I do about 
a justice's case. When I have a case before a justice of the peace, 
T can't help thinking of it beforehand, and perhaps feeling grieved 
too, afterward, if in any respect I might have conducted it better. 
If I am at a dinner, the merriment or the philosophy of the tahle- 
talk suggests something, which I put away into a pigeon-hole in my 
mind for the case ; and when I read, be it poetry or prose, the case 
hangs over the page like a magnet, and attracts to itself whatever 
seems to be pertinent or applicable. Success or failure leaves a 
bright or a dark hue on my mind, often for days. But, judging 
from external indications, what do ministers care on Monday, at a 
dinner-party or a jam, which way souls are steering? Let me al- 
ways except in this city, however. Dr. Channing and good old Father 
Taylor. 

June 11. Sunday. As I sit down to write, martial music is 
playing in the streets. A riot of almost unheard-of atrocity has 
raged for several hours this afternoon between the Irish population 
of Broad Street and its vicinity, on one side, and the engine-men and 
those who rallied to their assistance, on the other. It is said lives 
are lost : it is certain that great bodily injury has been inflicted. 
Different accounts are given, by the different parties, of the origin 
of the aflfray, each nation charging the aggression upon the other. 
It will, of course, be the subject of judicial investigation : but I have 
fears that antipathies will pursue the foreigners ; that sympathies will 
protect the natives; and that punishment will be administered with 
an unequal hand. 

No man can have observed the state of public opinion on the 
subject of insubordination and violence, for redress of supposed 
wrongs, for some time past, without painful forebodings in regard to 
the future. A resort to force, if it has not been openly approved by 
men of wealth, character, and influence, has been but feebly repre- 
hended. Physical resistance has been spoken of feebly as one of 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 75 

the modes of redress. Men's minds have been diverted from the 
remedy of a quiet and calm administration of the law, if they have 
not Ibeen taught, indeed, to look with some degree of contempt upon 
the slow processes of judicial proceedings. A reverence for law has 
not been inculcated. The public mind has become habituated to the 
contemplation of speedier modes of redress. The sentiment of insub- 
ordination has not been branded. Overt acts of interference with 
the rights of others have been almost applauded ; for when strong 
condemnation is expected, and only feeble and timid disapproval 
is given, the offender feels as though he had been justified. If 
it had been the practice of all men, and all public organs for the 
expression of opinion, to place violence and civil commotion at its 
true point in the scale of guilt, that condition of the common mind 
would not have existed out of which a riot could spring. Under the 
influence of such expressions of the public voice, for some time past, 
as I have referred to, those general feelings have grown up in which 
a sudden and widely diffused provocation would generate violence. 
An occasion only was wanting for thoughts to become actions, for 
ideas to find arms, for the impulse to take the weapon. Those who 
form, or contribute to form, this public opinion, are the real culprits ; 
nor are those exonerated from guilt who might have done much to 
reform, to enlighten, to correct, but who have preferred the private 
indulgence of their own ease and their own luxuries to the labor of 
moulding public opinion. In a government like ours, there will be 
a public opinion of almost uncontrollable power. The educated, the 
wealthy, the intelligent, may have a powerful and decisive voice in 
its formation ; or they may live in their own selfish enjoyments, and 
suffer the ignorant, the vicious, the depraved, to form that public 
opinion. If they do the latter, they must expect that the course of 
events will be directed by the licentious impulse, and that history 
will take its character from the predominant motives of action ; and 
that they will, at distant places and at distant times, be doomed to 
bear the ignominy they are now disposed to ascribe wholly to others. 
June 14. All the leisure of this day has been spent in writing a 
long letter to E. Dwight, Esq., at his request, portraying the duties 
of the Secretary of the Board of Education, and informing him of the 
relation in which I must stand to his proposition to me to accept 



76 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

that office. I cannot think of that station, as regards myself, with- 
out feeling both hopes and fears, desu'es and apprehensions, multi- 
plying in my mind, — so glorious a sphere, should it be crowned 
with success ; so heavy with disappointment and humiliation, should 
it fail through any avoidable misfortune. What a thought, to have 
the future minds of such multitudes dependent in any perceptible 
degi-ee upon one's own exertions ! It is such a thought as must 
mightily energize or totally overpower any mind that can adequately 
comprehend it. 

June 16. Have seen nothing, heard nothing, done nothing, 
thought nothing, to-day, worthy of being recorded in this valueless 
joui'nal. The whole day has been spent in investigating a legal 
question, which, the farther I explore, seems more and more promis- 
ing for my client. But what is the reason of that increasing confi- 
dence ? This is a most profound and interesting question. Do my 
convictions gain strength because I discover new reasons for believ- 
ing I am right ? or does the revolving of old reasons in my mind ten 
times over produce the same effect as the discovery of ten new rea- 
sons ? Who can analyze his own belief into its elements, and de- 
termine how much of it has arisen from some predilection to one 
thing, or repulsion from another ? An opinion is adopted without 
reflection, or any comparison with other views, expressed perhaps 
with heedlessness, then defended through pride, then rescued from 
refutation through sloth in examining other opinions, then consoli- 
dated into an article of the creed. Of what infinite importance is 
it, that in the incipient stages of conviction, when the mind per- 
ceives that it has the elements of belief in it that have not yet 
found out theii- affinities, before it subsides and hardens into con- 
viction, — how infinitely important is it to keep the eye steadfastly 
on truth ! — never to think whether it will be popular, profitable, 
pleasant to have the truth one thing or another, but to ask solely, 
exclusively, earnestly, incessantly. What is truth ? There is no such 
treasure as truth ; there is no such source of happiness as truth ; 
there is no such antidote against calamity as truth. Truth will 
bear a man prosperously onward ; but error is a burden that has to 
be carried. 

June 17. One cannot see the date, " June 17," without an ac- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 77 

celeration of tlie blood, and a certain emotion of feeling taller. I 
am not in a mood to moralize or fustianize on this topic. How else 
can we so worthily or sincerely show either gratitude or admiration 
for the deeds of our ancestors as by improving and transmitting to 
others the various blessings they achieved for us ? In our day, 
things are to be done, though not such things as they did. They 
did what the cncumstances of that age demanded : the exigencies 
of our age demand the performance of appropriate acts quite as 
imperatively as theirs did. Our imitation of their example, as 
adapted to our times, is the only legitimate proof of our admiration, 
or the true measure of our gratitude. 

June 19. Employed the whole day in looking up a technical 
question of law. I have not, therefore, had any thing in my head 
but technical combinations of technicalities. This part of the law 
has a strong tendency to make the mind near-sighted. What 
Coleridge says generally, and very untruly, of the law, may be just 
when apphed solely to this part of it, — that its operation upon the 
mind is like that of a grind-stone upon a knife ; it narrows while 
it sharpens. And is it not true that every object of science, however 
grand or elevated, has its atoms, its minute and subtle divisions 
and discrimmations ? The degrees of longitude upon the earth's 
surface, the zones into which the globe has been divided, and their 
corresponding lines and compartments in the heavens, would show 
pretty well in the registry for county deeds ; but yet, in surveying 
and affixing the bounds and limits to these vast tracts of space, 
what minute calculations must the geographer and astronomer 
make ! what fractions, what decimals, what infinitesimals ! So 
the natural philosopher, whose patrimony, bequeathed to him by 
science, is continents and oceans and suns, must deal also with 
globules and animalculse, and points vanishing into nothingness. 
Who can have more subtle questions to settle than the casuist or 
the metaphysician? So of all. In one direction we lose every 
thing in magnificence, in vastness, in infinity : in the other direc- 
tion we are equally lost in attempting to trace to their elements 
those substances, whatever they are, whose aggregate is earth, 
ocean, air, sky, immensity. Those who see nothing in the law but 
technicalities, apices, and summa jura, are about as wise as the 



78 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

child who mistook the infinite host of the stars for brass nails that 
fastened up the earth's ceiling. 

June 20. Another day in search of the technical rules of law. 
If the whole professional business of a lawyer consisted only in 
investigating and determining technical rules, one might almost be 
excused for attempting to reach justice summarily through the in- 
strumentality of that monster, a mob. Those who only have to pay 
for technical law are comparatively fortunate ; but this effort for two 
days in succession to keep the eye fixed upon the edge of a razor is 
apt to make one a little nervous. I will, therefore, try to try the 
effect of "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." Ah ! sleep 
I can rarely woo ; " balmy sleep," never ! Calamity and misfor- 
tune and attendant ill-health have thrown my system into such dis- 
order, that now I never sleep; and, as a necessary consequence, am 
never awake. The sleep and the being awake — the land and the 
water — are mingled together, and neither can be enjoyed. 

June 22. Spent half an hour to-day in the Athenjeum Grallery. 
Some exquisite paintings. What an art ! — to vivify canvas, to 
make colors express soul. By means of language, we can, at best, 
only communicate ideas one by one. It is as though the ocean were 
to be shown to a spectator by separate di'ops. By painting and 
sculpture we see the whole soul at once : the great ocean of its 
thoughts and feelings is taken in at a glance. No wonder \h.Q an- 
cients called the arts " divine." And if it costs the artist so much 
labor, su-ch sleepless study, such vehement strivings, to draw the 
outline of form with such wonderful exactness, to color the space 
within the outline with such exquisite skill, so that a mere trem- 
bUng of his hand in the delineation, the slightest failure in the 
touch of his pencil, would mar the beauty of his productions, — if 
all this toil and care and dexterity are requisite to make a dead im- 
age, a lifeless, thoughtless, soulless copy of a soul, how much more 
toil and care and judgment are demanded in those who have the 
formation of the soul itself ! 

June 28. This morning, received a call from Mr. Dwight on 
the subject of the Secretaiyship ; and as the meeting of the Board 
is appointed for to-morrow, and as he did not seem to have arrived 
at any certain conclusions in his own mind, I thought the time had 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 79 

already come when points should be stated explicitly. I therefore 
wi'ote to Mr. Dwight, saying that it would be better for the cause 
if the candidate who should be selected should appear to have been 
the first choice of the Board ; that I therefore should feel it to be a 
duty to decline the honor of being voted for, unless it was bond 
fide my intention to accept ; that I would accordingly regard the 
subject in its business aspects alone, and place the matter in a 
point of view not liable to be mistaken. I then stated, that, as I 
should have some professional business to close up, it had all along 
been my intention not to receive more than twenty-five hundred 
dollars for the first year ; that as to subsequent years, if the Legis- 
lature should add any thing to the one thousand they have now 
appropriated as the salary of the Secretary, half of that addition 
should be added to the sum of twenty-five hundred until it became 
three thousand, but should not go beyond the latter su.m ; that by 
this it would become the interest of the Secretary so to discharge 
his duties as to gain the favor of the public ; and that it was quite 
well in all cases, and with regard to all, to make their interest and 
their duty draw in the same direction, if possible. This was the 
substance of my letter ; though it had the proper amount of inter- 
lardings and lubrifications. I tremble, however, at the idea of the 
task that possibly now lies before me. Yet I can now conscien- 
tiously say that here stands my purpose, ready to undergo the 
hardships and privations to which I must be subjected, and to en- 
counter the jealousy, the misrepresentation, and the prejudice almost 
certain to arise ; here stands my mind, ready to meet them in the 
spmt of a martyr. To-morrow will probably prescribe for me a 
course of life. Let it come ! I know one thing, — if I stand by 
the principles of truth and duty, nothing can inflict upon me any 
permanent harm. 

June 29. I cannot say that this day is one to which I have not 
looked forward with deep anxiety. The chance of being offered 
a station which would change the whole course of my action, and 
consequently of my duties, through life, was not to be regarded with 
indifference. The deep feeling of interest was heightened by the 
reflection, that, in case of my receiving the appointment of Secretary 
of the Board of Education, my sphere oi possible usefulness would 



80 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

be indefinitely enlarged, and that my failure wonld forever force into 
contrast the noble duty and the inadequate discharge of it. The 
day is past. I have received the offer. The path of usefulness is 
opened before me. My present purpose is to enter into it. Few 
undertakings, according to my appreciation of it, have been greater. 
I know of none which may be more fruitful in beneficent results. 

God grant me an annihilation of selfishness, a mind of wisdom, 
a heart of benevolence ! How many men I shall meet who are 
accessible only through a single motive, or who are incased in pre- 
judice and jealousy, and need, not to be subdued, but to be re- 
modelled ! how many who will vociferate their devotion to the 
public, but whose thoughts will be intent on themselves ! There is 
but one spirit in which these impediments can be met with success : 
it is the spirit of self-abandonment, the spirit of martyrdom. To 
this, I believe, there are but few, of all those who wear the form of 
humanity, who will not yield. I must not irritate, I must not 
humble, I must not degrade any one in his own eyes. I must not 
present myself as a solid body to oppose an iron barrier to any. I 
must be a fluid sort of a man, adapting myself to tastes, opinions, 
habits, manners, so far as this can be done without hypocrisy or 
insincerity, or a compromise of principle. In all this, there must 
be a higher object than to win personal esteem, or favor, or worldly 
applause. A new fountain may now be opened. Let me strive to 
direct its cun'ent in such a manner, that if, when I have departed 
from life, I may still be permitted to witness its course, I may 
behold it broadening and deepening in an everlasting progression 
of virtue and happiness. 

June 30. This morning I communicated my acceptance of the 
Secretaiyship of the Board of Education. Afterwards I sat with 
the Board until they adjourned without day. I then handed to the 
Governor the resignation of my membership of the Boai'd. I now 
stand in a new relation to them ; nor to them only : I stand in a new 
relation to the world. Obligations to labor in the former mode are 
removed ; but a more elevated and weighty obligation to toil sup- 
plies the place of. the former. Henceforth, so long as I hold this 
office, I devote myself to the supremest welfare of mankind upon 
earth. An inconceivably greater labor is undertaken. With the 



LIFE OF HOEACB MANN. 81 

Mghest degree of prosperity, results will manifest themselves but 
slowly. The harvest is far distant from the seed-time. Faith is 
the only sustainer. I have faith in the unprovability of the race, — 
in their accelerating improvabihty. This effort may do, apparently, 
but Kttle. But mere beginning in a good cause is never Uttle. If 
we can get this vast wheel into any perceptible motion, we shall 
have accomplished much. And more and higher qualities than 
mere labor and perseverance will be requisite. Art for applying 
will be no less necessary than science for combining and deducing. 
No object ever gave scope for higher powers, or exacted a more 
careful, sagacious use of them. At first, it will be better to err on 
the side of caution than of boldness. When walking over quag- 
nures, we should never venture long steps. However, after all the 
advice which all the sages who ever lived could give, there is no 
such security against danger, and in favor of success, as to under- 
take it with a right spirit, — with a self-sacrificing spirit. Men can 
resist the influence of talent ; they will deny demonstration, if need 
be : but few will combat goodness for any length of tune. A spirit 
mildly devoting itself to a good cause is a certain conqueror. Love 
is a universal solvent. Wilfulness will maintain itself agamst per- 
secution, torture, death, but will be fused and dissipated by kind- 
ness, forbearance, sympathy. Here is a clew given by Grod to lead 
us through the labyrinth of the world. 

July 1. This day I consider the first on which my official char- 
acter as Secretaiy of the Board commences. The acceptance was 
with an express condition, that I was to finish my professional busi- 
ness abeady commenced. That, however, will occupy but a small 
portion of my time, and it will be tapering off continually. I mean 
soon to commence reading and writing with express reference to the 
office. . . . 

July 2. Sunday. I heard Mr. Taylor this afternoon. How 
wonderfully rare it is to hear a sentiment of toleration uttered by a 
man who cares aught about religion ! A sceptic may well indorse 
the right of private judgment on religious subjects ; for it is only an 
error on a topic which at least he holds to be worthless. But for 
one whose heart yearns towards religion ; who beUeves it to be the 
"011," — for such an one to avow, practise, feel, the noble senti- 



82 LIFE OF HOEACB MANN. 

meat of universal toleration, can proceed from nothing but a pro- 
found recognition of human rights and the conscientious obedience 
to all their requirements. Yet such is Mr. Taylor. 

In my early life, I was accustomed to hear all doctrines, creeds, 
tenets, which did not exactly conform to the standard set up, 
denounced as heresies ; their behevers cast out fii'om fellowship in 
this life, and coolly consigned to eternal perdition in the next. I 
think it would have made an immense diiference, both in my happi- 
ness and character, had the genial, encoiu'aging, ennobling spirit of 
liberahty been infused into my mind when its sentiments were first 
capable of being excited on that subject. Then it would always 
have been a matter of ready impulse, of spontaneous feeling, instead 
of my being obliged to work out that problem of duty by the most 
painful efforts of the intellect. 

Mr. Mann might have here recorded a fact which helped 
to let the light in upon his mind. The Universalists 
were denounced then even more than now as God-for- 
saken, deistical sinners, wolves in sheep's clothing, out of 
the pale of Christian fellowship ; but within his neighbor- 
hood there lived a man of that much-maligned sect, who 
was remarkable for all the Christian virtues. Probably 
his love to God was not credited, even if he professed it: 
but his love for man was unquestionable ; for it was 
proved by his beneficent deeds and his honorable deal- 
ings. It was heresy in the young Calvinists (who were 
the only ones likely to dare to think for themselves, — 
youth being naturally rebellious to tyranny) to look upon 
his virtues as any thing but godless works ; but to a bold 
thinker it was a nucleus around which thoughts would 
cluster. 

Boston, July 2, 1837. 

My dear Friend, — How long it is since the light of your pen 

visited me ! It really is long, and probably it seems longer than it 

is. In the mean time, what a change in externals has befallen me ! 

I no longer write myself attorney, counsellor, or lawyer. My law- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 83 

books are for sale. My office is "to let." The bar is no longer 
my forum. My jurisdiction is changed. I have abandoned juris- 
pradence, and betaken myself to the larger sphere of mind and 
morals. Having found the present generation composed 'of mate- 
rials almost unmalleable, I am about transferring my eifoiis to the 
next. Men are cast-iron; but children are wax. Strengih expend- 
ed upon the latter may be effectual, which would make no impres- 
sion tipon the former. 

But you will ask what is the interpretation of this oracular ambi- 
guity. A law was passed last winter, constituting a Board of Edu- 
cation " consisting of the Governor and Lieut.-Grovernor, ex officiis, 
and eight other persons to be appointed by the Governor and Coun- 
cil; " which Board was authorized to appoint a Secretary, whose duty 
it should be "to collect information of the actual condition and effi- 
ciency of the cormnon schools and other means of popular education, 
and to diffuse as widely as possible, throughout every part of the 
Commonwealth, information of the most approved and successful 
modes of instruction." I have accepted that office. If I do not 
succeed in it, I will lay claim at least to the benefit of the saying, 
that in great attempts it is glorious even to fail. 

Thursday. I wrote thus far last Sunday, when I was inter- 
rupted, and have not had time since to finish this letter. , . . Al- 
though my mind is full of the subject of my new duties, yet my 
thoughts are almost chaotic ; and they will continue, I suppose, 
for a long time, to fly round and round without order and harmony. 
I hope, however, that the time will come when they will subside, and 
cohere according to some law of intellectual and moral affinity. As 
yet, my task seems incomprehensibly great. I scarcely know 
where or in what manner to begin. I have, however, a faith as 
strong as prophecy, that much may be done. 

My intention is to leave the city for perhaps a few weeks, and 
go into the country (probably to Franklin), carry some books, and 
endeavor to think out something worthy of being acted. Some 
time early in September, I shall probably commence a circuit 
through the State, inviting conventions of instructors, school commit- 
tees, and all others interested in the cause of education, to be held 
in the different counties, and at such times avail myself of the op- 



84 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

portunity to recommend some improvements, and generally to apply 
a flesh-brusli to the back of the public. Now, out of your abun- 
dance, I shall expect you to contribute much to fill my small urn of 
experience and knowledge. I will be a conduit between you and 
the public for as much information as my gauge will enable me to 
convey. Do let me hear from you soon. 

Yours affectionately, 
j H. MANN. 

July 3. What strikes me as most extraordinary in relation to 
my new office is, that every man, with the single exception of Dr. 
Channing, inquires concerning the salary, or makes remarks that 
look wholly to the comparative honor of the station ; while no man 
seems to recognize its possible usefulness, or the dignity and eleva- 
tion which is inwrovight into beneficent action. Does not the com- 
munity need to be educated half round the compass, until they shall 
cease to look upon that as the greatest good which is the smallest, 
and shall find the gi-eatest good in what they now overlook, and by 
which their minds pass as unconsciously as though it had no ex- 
istence ? 

July 4. Celebrations during the day ; parade of miUtary com- 
panies; people turned out of doors, and houses shut up; this 
evening, fire-works on the Common, which was filled, crammed, — 
as a vintner would say, " a quart of spectators put into a pint of 
Common;" and all day I have not seen one staggerer! " Laus 
Deo, et societatibus temperantise ! " 

July 8. This week I have commenced in earnest, and with some 
degree of exclusive devotedness, a course of reading tending to 
quaUfy me for my new duties. I have long known that no man 
can apply himself to any worthy subject, either of thought or action, 
but he will forthwith find it develop into dimensions and qualities 
of which before he had no conception. If this be true of all sub- 
jects worthy of rational attention, how extensively true is it of the 
all-comprehending subject of education! This expansion of any 
object to which our attention is systematically dhected may be com- 
pared to the opening of a continent upon the eye of an approaching 
mariner. At first he descries some minute point, just emerging in 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 85 

the distance, — the lofty summit of some mountain. As he approach- 
es, other elevated points seem to rise out of nothing, and stand up in 
the horizon ; then they are perceived to be connected together ; then 
hills, cities, towns, plains, rivers, which the eye cannot count for 
their numbers, nor embrace for their distance, fill up the admiring 
vision. So it is in approaching any of the intellectual or moral sys- 
tems which Nature has established. 

July 9. Sunday. Spent the main part of the day in reading 
James Simpson's work entitled " Necessity of Popular Education; " 
and, as I read and think upon the subject, that point, that speck, 
that dot, of which I spoke last night, grows larger and larger. 
Let it grow. I hope I shall have strength to explore some of its 
most important parts. 

July 10. Still following up the great labor of preparation. 
Have this day examined a great variety of articles designed for ap- 
paratus in instruction. Here, on this point of introducing appara- 
tus into common use, and thus substituting real for verbal know- 
ledge, I must endeavor to efieet a lodgement in the public mind. 

July 13. Another striking instance has come to my knowledge, 
of a gentleman, whom I should have expected fully to appreciate the 
importance and the inherent dignity of my new office, expressing 
surprise that I should forego other expectations for its sake, and 
regret that its title did not indicate more fully the duties to be per- 
formed. If the Lord prospers me in this great woi'k, I hope to 
convict such persons of error ; and as to the title, of what conse- 
quence is that ? If the title is not sufficiently honorable now, then 
it is clearly left for me to elevate it ; and I had rather be creditor 
than debtor to the title. 

July 14. My reading upon the subject of my new duties is very 
delightful. Notliing could be more congenial with all my tastes, 
feelings, and principles. What occupation more pure, more ele- 
vated, more dheetly tending to good, and hence more self-sustain- 
ing ? So let it continue to appear to me, and it will make the resi- 
due of life more tolerable than I had ever supposed it could be. 

July 15. Still looking upon the externals of the magnificent 
temple which I hope some day to be less unworthy to enter. Had 
a conversation with Judge upon the subject, in which he 



86 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

brought out in their fulness all his conservative and anti-movement 
notions. Is he not so much of a conservative that he is in great 
danger of conserving error? and, if error can only be conserved, 
how mightily wdl it grow of itself ! 

Boston, July 16, 1837. 

My dear Sister, — You will be not a little surprised to learn 
how gi'eat a change has come over my course of business-life since I 
last saw you. I have quitted the profession of the law. I hope that 
no necessity will ever compel me to resume it again. But why, 
you would ask, and for what object? I will tell you. . . . 
I have accepted the office of Secretary of the Board ; and, as it will 
occupy all my time (and is sufficient to occupy me in ten places at 
once if that were possible), I necessarily leave my profession in 
order to bestow upon it my undivided attention. Could I be as- 
sured that my efforts in this new field of labor would be crowned 
with success, I know of no occupation that would be more agreear 
ble to me, — more congenial to my tastes and feelings. It presents 
duties entirely accordant with principle. . . . Some persons think 
it not wise to leave my profession, which has hitherto treated me 
quite as well as I have deserved : others profess to think that my 
prospects in political life were not to be bartered for a post whose 
returns for eifort and privation must be postponed to another gen- 
eration ; and that my present position in the Senate would be far 
preferable to being a post-rider from county to county, looking after 
the welfare of children who will never know whence benefits may 
come, and encountering the jealousy and prejudice and misrepre- 
sentation of ignorant parents. But is it not better to do good than 
to be commended for having done it ? If no seed were ever to be 
sown save that which would promise the requital of a full harvest 
before we die, how soon would mankind revert to barbarism ! If I 
can be the means of ascertainine: what is the best construction 

o 

of houses, what are the best books, what is the best arrangement of 
studies, what are the best modes of instruction ; if I can discover 
by what appliance of means a non-thinking, non-reflecting, non- 
speaking child can most surely be trained into a noble citizen ready 
to contend for the right and to die for the right, — if I can only 
obtain and diffuse throughout this State a few good ideas on these 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 87 

and similar subjects, may I not flatter myself that my ministry has 
not been wholly in vain ? . . . The laws which sustain our system 
of common-school instruction are scarcely better than they have 
been for a century and a half. If schools have imjDroved, it has 
not been in consequence of any impulse given to them by gov- 
ernment. ... I intend to go to Franklin soon, to stay a week or 
two, to read on the new subject, to write an address, &c. ; and if 
you will write to me there, and say you will come and stay a week 
or a few days, I will go for you. ... H. M. 

July 1'2>. Have entered slowly upon my lecture, though a dys- 
peptic obscuration of intellect baffles the will.- Dulness never 
had a more copious subject. Indeed, its largeness, its infinity, 
embarrass me. It is like an attempt to lift the earth : the arms 
ai'e too short to get hold of it. However, I hope to get hold of a 
few handfuls. ... 

Aug. 12. On Friday last, went to Boston, where I remained 
one week. . . . Accomplished considerable business in Boston. 
Prepared and issued circulars to the school committees of every 
town in the State, designating time and place for holding the pro- 
posed conventions in each of the counties. As yet, nothing trans- 
pires which indicates at all in what manner the new mission will be 
received by the public. All is left for me to do. At the best, 
perhaps, I can only hope that the community is on a poise, and 
ready to be swayed one way or the other, according to the manner 
of putting on the weight. 

Sept. 15. . . . Northampton. This evening, had a long con- 
versation with , who was on a visit to Noithampton, on 

the subject of attempting to enlighten and elevate the masses ; and 
have found him an infinite sceptic. He holds the British Govern- 
ment, of kings, lords, and commons, to be the best in the world, or 
that can be in it ; that classes are essential, — one to woi'k, the 
other to improve ; laments that the good old days of the aristocracy 
have gone by, when no upstart could ever obtain ingress into their 
ranks ; and thinks that one portion of mankind is to be refined and 
cultivated, the other to suffer, toil, and live and die in vulgarity. 
In the course of the conversation, he denied that the class he eulo- 
gized ever insulted those who started in life, as he would call it, 



< 



88 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

below them; and yet he insulted me and all my relatives twice 
most outrageously. That is their way. Beginning with the prin- 
ciple that they are from their bhth superior, they are constantly 
acting it out in life, embodying it in conduct, and yet profess to be 
ignorant that they are committing the grossest indignities. A pow- 
erless, conceited, haughty race, who have little or nothing besides 
adventitious merit, — what would the poor insects do if they were 
deprived of that ? Therefore let them be pardoned ; not for any 
repentance or improvement, — for of that they seem almost 
incapable, — but for their insignificance. 

Sept. 17. Yesterday, saw Mr. Lyman, who seems much inter- 
ested in the cause. The High School for Females is constituted 
substantially according to the free plan of Mr. Alcott, contained in 
one of the volumes of the American Institute of Instruction. 

Sept. 27. Found on my return a most encouraging letter fi'om 
Dr. Channing, full of a sj)irit communing with my spuit. How 
different from, the views entertained and expressed to me at Noith- 

ampton by Mr. ! and liow different must be the source from 

which such opposite sentiments flow ! Many of our educated men 
need educating much more than the ignorant. When shall we 
bring them both up to the level of humanity ? Perhaps never ; 
but we will try. 

Oct. 8. Sunday. Have been over to see the Chapoquiddic 
Indians. Called on a number with their guardian, Mr. Thaxter, 
who, I think, is improving the habits and condition of the tribe. 
They have a meetinghouse-schoolhouse, "one and indivisible;" 
have had a Sunday school up to to-day, but are to have no more 
through the winter. Have next to no school among them, except 
this Sunday school. They appear, I should think, pretty well for 
an Indian settlement ; having about fifty inhabitants and one bam 
on their part of the island. A failing and white-man stricken race ! 

To-morrow is the day of the convention here. 

Oct. 10. This is Nantucket. Hither I have come to-day, gaz- 
ing and still gazing upon the ocean ; while the feeling in my mind 
continually is, "I do not comprehend it yet." The mind is 
adapted to admii'e it as much as the web-foot of a sea-bird is to 
swim in it. A striking anecdote of intolerance was told me to-day. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 89 

Last Sunday, being at Edgartown, where there were only a Congre- 
gationalist, a Baptist, and a Methodist society, — all Orthodox, — I 
thought I would go over to Chapoquiddic and see the Indians ; 
which I accordingly did, and availed myself as much as I could 
of my visit to exhibit an interest in their welfare, and to encourage 
them in well-doing. Monday, the next day, was the day for the 
convention at Edgartown, called to meet at ten o'clock, a.m. It 
met at that hour ; and, after being in session an houi- or two, ad- 
journed for the afternoon. One Rev. (reverend by courtesy, 

and a Christian by assumption), who came that morning from Tis- 
bury, — nine miles, — told a friend of mine that he had understood 
that I was in town the day preceding, and did not go to meeting : 
so that it seemed, forthwith, on the getting together of the godly, 
the question had been, whether I had the Congregationalist, Bap- 
tist, or Methodist ear-mark ; and, it being found that I was guilty 
of not having either, I was forthwith condemned ; and, moreover, 

the Rev. said, that " if Mr. Mann was in town, and did not 

go to meeting, he had as lief not hear him as to hear him; " and 
further, that, if I did not wish to show a preference for either sect, 
I might have gone to hear each during the day, — thus giving me 
the alternative to hear three Orthodox sermons in one day, or be 
burned. I confess I had rather be burned ; at least, a little. 

Oct. 14. The convention has heen : yet not wholly ; for the 
meeting was unable to get through this evening, and has adjourned 
to Tuesday evening next. On the whole, a pretty good meeting ; 
and, if the cause has any reason to complain, I have not. 

Oct. 17. . . . Barnstable. Went two and a half miles out of my 
way to see an Indian school on the Marshpee District, kept by a 
Mr. Perry. If one may judge by appearances, that man has a high 
aim, and appeared very well at school, — invited and rather insisted 
upon my going home with him to dine. I found he lived in an In- 
dian house. His wife had the dinner ready, to which we sat down. 
It consisted of a piece of corned beef and vegetables, — potatoes, 
one carrot and one beet, and brown bread without butter, salt, or the 
shghtest thing in the way of pickle, spice, or any condiment what- 
ever. There was no dessert. His " grace before meat " was less 
hurried than is usual, when, the rich viands being close by, and God 



90 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

a great way off, the flavor of the meat prevails over the odor of the 
sanctity, and the thanksgiving hurries into the enjoyment. There 
this man labors for the childi-en during the day, visits the people at 
night, and preaches to them on Sundays ; and all the apparent re- 
ward is meat and vegetables without trimming, while the million- 
naires go for the several varieties of sensuality, and cannot afford time 
even to have a reUgious garment fitted upon their backs. But will 
not the time come when he will have the banquets of immortality, 
and they will have to gnaw the dry bones of the past for rations ? 

I trust I have left an impression favorable to the cause on the 
old sandy cape. But we will try whether the seed sown in such a 
soil will grow. Just a notice is given in the paper here of the 
educational meeting for next Tuesday, — about a square, not quite ; 
while a whole column is devoted to the proceedings of a county 
political convention : the reason given, indeed, for not being able 
to publish more, that the paper was occupied with political matters; 
and the relative spaces allowed show the relative importance of the 
two subjects in the pubhc mind. 

Oct. 22. . . . To-day I have visited some of the graves of the 
Pilgrims. How little they saw, two centuries ago, of this present ! 
Who can fathom future time ? 

Oct. 29. . . . Boston. Yesterday I witnessed the ceremony of 
the reception by the Mayor, at Faneuil Hall, of about thirty In- 
dians, fresh from the wilds of the West. On the very spot where 
we live, how many of them have trod ! now how few their remnants ! 
Other men — nor other men only, but other forms of being — now 
exist where they existed. May it be for the better ! As specimens 
of the human race, the whole interview was mournful, together with 
the subsequent dance on the Conunon, — almost sceptic-making ; 
but, in contrast with the vast powers of civiUzed man, it was full of 
encouragement and hope. How closely the red and the white man 
were brought together, speaking to each other, shaking hands ! and 
yet how many centuries lie between them ! . . . 

Nov. 3. . . . Have been engaged all the week at court in 
Dedham, arguing causes. The interests of a client are small, com- 
pared with the interests of the next generation. Let the next gene- 
ration, then, be my cUent. . . . 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 91 

Nov. 6. Glad to find Dr. Channing in the city. As I called >i 
on him to-day, he proposed that some gentlemen engaged in ameli- 
orating this pessimum world should have a " re-union " somewhere 
this winter. If we can devise any scheme to give it a hoist, I am 
willing to try the strength of my back. 

Dined with C. Sumner to-day, who is going to Europe soon, -s/ 
When he goes, there will be one more good fellow on that side, and 
one less on this. 

To-morrow for Salem, where I am not only to repeat my speech, 
but where I have engaged to lecture for the Lyceum. And, cer- 
tainly, never was a poor debtor so desu'ous to get well out of the 
hands of his creditor as I am to get well out of that engagement. 
I have been obliged to write it all on my last journey, and it has 
given me a waking nightmare all the time. ... 

Nov. 10. Went to Salem as proposed. Met the convention ; 
though that is almost too great a word to apply to so small a num- 
ber of men. But few were there. Mr. Rantoul did not come at 
all, Mr. Saltonstall but Uttle. Things had not been arranged be- 
forehand, and every thing dragged and stuck, — one of the poorest 
conventions I have had. I went to deliver a lecture before the 
Lyceum also, introductory to the couise. That was done last even- 
ing to a very good audience at the Tabernacle Church. But it was 
not the lecture I had prepared for the occasion. Some of those 
who heard the Educational Address called for a repetition of that : 
so they had it. I have been indebted to my friend Mr. Webb for 
many civilities while at Salem, and to as much assistance as it was 
in his power to render; but there my debts stop, not because of 
payment, but because I received nothing to owe for. 

A friend who was present at this convention says it 
was remarkable to see the apathy with which it opened. 
One gentleman, who made one of the first speeches, ques- 
tioned the expediency of endeavoring to get the edu- 
cated classes to patronize public schools. He spoke, he 
said, in the interest of mothers who preferred private 
schools for their children ; and he believed the reasons 
that they had for this would always prevail : they would 



92 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

have theix^ children grow up in intimacies with those of 
their own class. No one spoke on the American side of 
this question ; and the unanswered statement of this par- 
tial interest which the educated had in the public schools 
seemed to cast a chill over the meeting. No generous 
sentiment was touched. 

Another gentleman said he thought, that, preliminary 
to all things else, the Secretary should go round the State, 
and pass a day in every public school in it, and then make 
a report of their condition. 

After several sapient speeches like this had been made, 
Mr. Mann rose and said, that, if the gentleman who made 
the last proposition would take the trouble to do a short 
sum in arithmetic, he would find that it would take six- 
teen years for the Secretary to do this work, if he never 
intermitted one day. A general stir in the assembly 
intimated that suddenly the immensity of the work to be 
done struck their minds for the first time. It was also 
striking to others, though Mr. Mann did not recognize it, 
to see the effect of his remarkable address, which followed 
in the afternoon. The request made, that he should repeat 
it at the Lyceum in the evening, showed that it did not 
fall on unintelligent ears. 

An interesting portrait of him now hangs in the noble 
building erected for the Essex Normal School. 

To-day, returned to Boston. My great circuit is now completed. 
The point to which, three months ago, I looked forward with so 
much anxiety, is reached. The labor is done. With much weari- 
ness, with almost unbounded anxiety, with some thwartings, but, on 
the whole, with unexpected and extraordiaary encouragement, the 
work is done. That, however, is but the beginning. I confess, 
life begins to assume a value which I have not felt for five years 
before. 

Nov. 16. To-day I have exanuned the returns in the Secretaiy's 



LIFE OP HOEACB MANN. 93 

office, of which an abstract is to be made ; and find they look very 
formidable. What an ocean of work lies spread out before me! 
Well, I am. ready to plunge into it. 

Nov. 28. Shortly after accepting the office to whose duties I 
am now devoting my time and soul, I planned to give up my office- 
room, take one in some respectable place, and live in a man- 
ner more agreeable to my feelings than I can here in this law- 
yer's office, where I have slept about three years. Such an ar- 
rangement has now been made \ and probably to-morrow I shall 

begin upon it, having taken rooms at Dr. H 's, corner of Tre- 

mont and School Streets. This, therefore, may be the last night I 
may sleep in this room, where I have been so long, and labored so 
severely, and — perhaps I may write it here alone without blush- 
ing — brought some things to pass. 

It is not stated, I beheve, anywhere in these confessions, that 
after my irreparable loss, which made a far greater change in my 
soul than in my external condition, — though what of the kind 
could be greater than that ? — a misfortune of a different character, 
but comparatively light, befell me. It was comparatively nothing ; 
yet, operating through my health, it aggravated other ills to a de- 
gree seemingly incapable of extension. I had become Kable for 
my brother to the amount of many thousand doUars beyond the 
value of every thing I could command. His pecuniary misfortunes 
thickened upon him, so that he not only left me to pay his debts, 
but became necessitous, and called upon me in various ways to 
supply him still more. This I did to some extent, as far as I was 
able. When I found in what condition as to liabilities I really was 
left, I was living very comfortably. I changed my course enthely. 
I left my boarding-house, and after a time got a bed here, and 
have for about three years taken care of it with my own hands, 
restricted my expenses in every possible way, and lived out the 
storm. For a period of nearly six months, I was unable to buy a 
dinner on half the days. Sufifering from hunger and exhaustion, 
overworked, I fell ill, and so remained for about two months ; my 
best friends not expecting my recovery, and some of them, I sin- 
cerely believe, deprecating it as the infliction of further suffering. 



94 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Since I have been here in this house of ofifices, a part of the time 
with no other person in the whole building, it has been twice set on 
fire by incendiaries right over my head, and several other attempts 
have been made. I have held my life as noiight ; for to me it has 
seemed to be worth nothing. I have toiled in despair, yet not com- 
plaining. Now that the debts are paid, and I can call my income 
my own, I mean not to endure those removable evils as I have done. 
Not a sHght trouble in this accumulation has been the belief that 
there were those who ought to have at least showed me so much 
sympathy as to have offered to relieve me ; but that has not been 
done. I confess it is not in my power to feel in that case just as I 
should be glad to. But perhaps I do not know all their views 
upon the subject. I pray God that these trials may now be over 
and past. Yet not that I would escape from them to fly into any 
that affect internal character or outward reputation. No : let come 
what may upon the body ; let come what may to crush the intellect : 
my most earnest prayer is that the moral nature, the affections, the 
sense of justice and of right, may never be impaired. Let all tor- 
tures come, provided they are safe. 

Nov. 29. As I anticipated last night, I leave this ofBce to- 
night, and somewhat of an epoch occurs in my life. May I not 
hope that at least the privations of which I have been the subject in 
this place may not contuiue to visit me at another residence ? May 
I not also hope, and with some confidence trust, that no change in 
external condition will weaken the strong purposes of my mind, or 
shake my resolution to devote what talents and what length of life 
I may have to some good purpose ? 

I now leave these walls, which have witnessed for the last three 
years so many disconsolate days, and so many sleepless and tearfal 
nights. 

Nov. 30. Thanksgiving Day; but, oh, what days they are to 
me ! and what a day would a real Thanksgiving Day be to me ! But 
it fills my heart too fall ; and fortunately I have been so busy to- 
day, that I have very much escaped the corrosion of my mind on 
itself. . . . 

Dec 2. Yesterday I went to Ipswich, and preached my preach- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 95 

ment to a pretty full house. . . . On the whole, perhaps it is well 
that I went where I can make a favorable impression, if it is but 
upon one man : it is something, and may turn the scale. 

Dec. 10. Last Friday I was at an anti-mob meeting in Faneuil 
Hall. Had I time, I would write out an account of the meeting, 

and of the views which such occurrences are bringing out. A 

made a speech so flagrantly wicked as to be imbecile. No part of 
it came up to the dignity of sophistry. Every part of it was what 
common indecency would blush at. How can a man either pervert 
himself so, or be so perverted ? 

But it is approaching the " witching time of night;" and, as I 
slept scarcely at all last night, I must try my luck to-night ; and 
should I write what I feel, and all I feel, of that devil-o^m&ai, it 
would either occupy me till morning, or it would give me an excite- 
ment equally incompatible with rest. So let me look forward to 
the children of the next generation, rather than around to the in- 
corrigible men of this. 

Dec. 15. On the evening of the 12th, the freshly elected 
Mayor gave a party which I attended ; though I confess I neither 
appetize the parties nor the partisans very much. Thenceforth, in- 
cluding to-day, I have been hard at work, excepting last evening, 
when a re-union of certain gentlemen was held at Mr. Jonathan 
Phillips's. Dr. Channing, Dr. Tuckerman, Mr. E. Peabody, Mr. 
Bartol, and a young, unfledged theologian, made up the clerical 
side of the house : Elhs Gr. Loring and myself represented the lay 
gents. Dr. Channing introduced the subject of the meeting, which 
he had been the chief agent in getting together, by saying that he 
was desu'ous of meeting some friends in a social way, for the pur- 
pose, among other objects, of knowing what might be the actual 
condition of the pubhc mind on certain vital principles. He 
wanted to know better than he did what sort of a world it was he 
was living in ; what influences predominated in society ; what was 
wrong, and what means could be devised to set the wrong right. 
His remarks had that perspicuity and distinctness which his mind 
imparts to whatever it handles. 

The conversation of the evening turned mainly upon the prevail- 
ing state of public opinion in this city respecting the Faneuil-Hali 



96 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

meeting against mobs : and it seemed to be a very general opinion, 
that' the opposition was not directed against abolitionists ; that there 
was no settled determination or desire to debar them from the ex- 
pression of their opinions ; but that their opinions were not the 
opinions of the people of the city, and therefore ought not to go out 
from Faneuil Hall, because the place whence they were sent might 
cause them to be mistaken abroad for Boston sentiments, and the 
authorities of the city would be understood as favoring and counte- 
nancing doctrines they discarded. 

Dec. 16. To-day, Hon. Jonathan Phillips has sent me the sum 
of $500. He has submitted it wholly to my disposal, to be ex- 
pended in the cause. It shall be expended in the cause, if I live ; 
and I hope to make it do something — a little, a very little — 
towards it. 

Dec. 18. Last evening, spent an hour pr so in conversation with 

Mr. on THj; subject,* and this afternoon two hours more. On 

the whole, my cavern has not been so much lighted up by this 
luminous body as I had anticipated. He may have such practical 
notions as a man long engaged in the practice must be compelled to 
learn ; but his views certainly have not seemed to me very original 
or striking. This may be part guess-work, part inference, and all 
wrong ; but it is at present the state of my mind. I hope I shall be 
compelled to alter it hereafter. 

Dec. 21. . . . To-night I heard Mr. Emerson's third. lecture. 
Not so lucid, pellucid, as the other. He condensed the conunand- 
ments, as it regards young men, into two : "Sit alone," and " Keep 
a journal." The first, I think, is about equivalent to the " Know 
thyself: " the last, perhaps, is a more direct injunction, " Improve 
thyself." My practice has, for a long time, adopted the first ; and 
this book speaks of the last. " Have a room by yourself," said he : 
" if you cannot without, sell your coat, and sit in a blanket." 

Dec. 31. The close of the year. I have not made an entry in 
this book for ten days, having been so engrossed in the printing of 
the Abstract of school returns and in the preparation of my Report. 
The last has cost me considerable labor. The Board meet to-morrow, 

* The educational enterprise. 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 97 

when it is to be presented. I have just been writing its last para- 
graphs ; and now, at the end of the day and of the year, shall try 
to get a Httle rest for this weary body and mind. One thing, how- 
ever, is certain. Severe as this labor is, it is surrounded mth the 
most delightfal associations. I am sure I can perform much more 
in this than I could in any other cause. But to-morrow will prob- 
ably give me some indications about my Report. I shall present it 
with fear and trembling. 

It is not prudent to open my heart to the associations that would 
throng it if permission for their entrance were given. The year has 
gone : it has joined the past eternity. I shall go with some of 
them ere long. When will it be ? 



CHAPTER ly. 

CONTINUATION OF JOURNAL. 

Jan. 1, 1838. This morning, read my Report to the whole 
Board, and have been, not on the shallows, but in the deep water 
of the fidgets ever since. I cannot tell how it has squai*ed with 
their notions ; for that is their test of right or wrong. I left the 
room to give them opportunity to let their minds run whither they 
would, without fear of running against me. Whether I should have 
been mn down or crushed, railroad-fashion, had I been there, I 
know not. Whereupon, as the writs say by way of conclusion, I 
have not had a happy new year ; and at this time of the night it has 
passed, beyond change. The time that comes to us is soft, yield- 
ing : like wax, we can shape it as we please. We take it, or per- 
haps scarcely take it : as it passes we give it a touch, or a careful, 
prayerful moulding ; and now it is adamant ! Yes : it is beyond 
miracle-working power. Omnipotence cannot alter or modify it. 
How wondei-ful ! Now, nothing so flowing, so ductile, so shapable ; 
now, all that calls itself might on earth, or in or beyond the starry 
universe, cannot color it with a new tint, or give it a new attitude. 
It is eternal ! 

Jan. 2. This morning the Board met, and, after a discussion of 
an hour or two, refen'ed certain propositions to the Executive Com- 
mittee. A headache has extinguished me the rest of the day. 

To-morrow the Legislature convenes. Till to-day the last Gen- 
eral Court was prorogued. Till to-day my senatorial hfe lasts ; to- 
day it ends. With good sleep, I shall wake up un-senatorial. So 
be it. I would not exchange this life, toilsome, anxious, doubtful 
as it is, and may be, to be at the head of the " grave and reverend " 
senators to-moiTOw. Probably I am breathing the few last political 
breaths I shall ever respire. This drives one's mind back a Kttle 
to see how the political breaths have been breathed up to this time. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 99 

But I will not go deep into that, lest I should fail, through under 
or over estimate, of hitting the true mark. 

Jan. 6. Since my last entry, I am sorry to say, I have accom- 
plished but little labor ; being obstructed, from some cause, in my 
mental machinery. I have, however, worried through with the 
Abstract; and, this very evening, have a copy of it complete. 
That work, therefore, which has been a most serious one, is com- 
pleted. To-day I go at my Sehoolhouse Eeport, which I hope will 
prove to be beantifal schoolhouse-seed, or seed out of which beau- 
tiful schoolhouses will grow, — a whole crop of them. 

Jan. 16. To-day a meeting of the Executive Committee of the 
Board. The Governor had a sort of embryo report, — two or three 
life-points here and there, as in one end of an egg, where here and 
there an organ is visible, and the chick hovers half this side of the 
line, half, as yet, in night. 

Jan. 18. Yesterday, received an invitation to preach a preach- 
ment, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, on my hobhy ; 
and, to-night, have preached it. A pretty full house, though the 
weather was unpleasant : held them one hour and a half, stiller and 
stiller to the end. 

Feh. 3. This afternoon, have had a meeting, full of interest and 
promise, at Chauneey Hall, of all the teachers of the primary schools 
in the city. The object is to bring them together, once a week, to 
hear a lecture ; to converse on some topics relating to the subject in 
which they are all engaged ; and not only to have a free communi- 
cation and exchange of the views which are now entertained, but, 
by turning the minds of so many persons to the facts suggested by 
their own experience, to improve and extend the valuable informa- 
tion that may now be possessed by all. The future meetings, it 
seems to me, promise very much in behalf of the children of the 
city. Mr. Russell is to deliver a course of lectures on elocution ; 
and all subjects connected with teaching are to have their share of 
attention, especially that of moral training. Oh for success in this ! 

Feb. 7. Last night, lectured at Warren-street Chapel to pretty 
good hsteners. To-morrow at Newton. I go in ignorance ; but I 
wait the results. Do we not all reap exactly the harvest of which 
we have sown the seed ? . . . 



100 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Feh. 10. THs afternoon, attended the meeting of the primary- 
school teachers again, — all women ; and, after a lecture from Mr. 
Russell, Mr. C. Barnard and I addi'essed it in relation to modes of 
teaching. The meeting was very fully attended ; as many as a 
hundred, I think, being present. This argues well. Why may we 
not have the primary schools much improved — doubled in value 
— in a single year ? I beheve it may be done ; I hope it will be 
done ; I intend it shall be done, if I live that length of time to 
attend to it. That I should call making a mark. 

March 2. The lecture before the Diffasion Society is deUvered. 
I had a small audience, but an attentive one. Many people who 
were attracted by Dr. Walker's name and subject, of course, would 
not come to hear me, as I have nothing like the first to attract 
them, and the subject of education attracts no fashion to hsten to its 
claims. Well, how could I expect that a subject which the world 
knows so little and cares so Uttle about would produce any interest ? 
It is left for some one to excite that interest. That is the work to 
be done. To that, in various ways and with all assiduity, I must ad- 
dress myself. K, after ten years of labor, people should remain as 
Indififerent as at present, there may be reason for desponding ; but 
now this very indiiference is my impulse. If any thing can be 
done to push away some things which are before the eyes of men, 
and to put some other things in their places, I think it no rashness 
to say, " I'll try." I do not think I delivered the lecture weU, — 
I was too much disconcerted, — but hope I may feel better next 
time. 

March 10. My second lecture was delivered last evening, with 
some evident hitehings on the seats now and then. Afterwards 
went to Mr. Dwight's, where a number of gentlemen were assembled 
to discuss the expediency of applying to the Legislature for a grant 
to aid in the estabhshment of Teachers' Seminaries. Considerable 
was said on both sides, but mostly on the fro side. But, after they 
had mainly dispersed, Mr. Dwight gave me authority to propose to 
the Legislature, in my own way, that $10,000 should be forthcoming 
from himself or others ; and that at any rate he would be responsible 
for that amount to accomplish the object, provided the Legislature 
would give the same amount for the same cause. On Monday, it is 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 101 

my intention to make a descent upon tlie two honorable bodies, and 
see if they cannot be so rubbed as to emit the requisite spark. This 
looks well. 

March 13. I had the satisfaction of sending the following com- 
munication to the Legislature : — 

To the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House 
of Representatives. 

GrENTLBMEN, — Private munificence has placed at my disposal 
the sum of $10,000 to promote the cause of popular education in 
Massachusetts. 

The condition is, that the Commonwealth will contribute the same 
amount from unappropriated funds in aid of the same cause ; both 
sums to be drawn upon equally as needed, and to be disbursed, 
under the direction of the Board of Education, in qualifying teach- 
ers for our common schools. 

As the proposal contemplates that the State in its collective ca- 
pacity shall do no more than is here profifered to be done from pri- 
vate means, and as, with a high and enlightened disregard of all 
local, party, and sectional views, it comprehends the whole of the 
rising generation in its philanthropic plan, I cannot refrain fi'om 
earnestly soliciting for it the favorable regards of the Legislature. 
Very respectfally, 

HOEACE MANN, 
Secretary of the Board of Education. 

This appears to be glorious ! I think I feel pretty sublime ! Let 
the stars look out for my head ! . . . 

April 4. . . . To-morrow evening, I have engaged to lecture at 
Lynn. Query, how shall I hit the good shoemakers with my flights 
and gyrations? 

April 14. To-morrow afternoon, I have engaged to speak to 
Mr. Waterston's Sunday-school children at the North Church. 
This is a new field, and comes pretty close to preaching ; but, when 
I preach, I hope I shall not forget, that, however near a live man 



102 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

may get to heaven, he still sustains the main part of his relations to 
the earth. 

April 16. . . . My Sehoolhouse Report came out last Thurs- 
day. I think it will make the community of children breathe 
easier. . . . 

April 18. . . . To-day the Board of Education has been in ses- 
sion. Important business presents itself; among other things, the 
mode of disbursing the sum of $20,000, — half of which comes from 
Mr. Dwight, and half from the State. No definitive action can be 
had at this time ; but " eyes open " are the words. It is a difficult 
subject. The Legislature have fixed my salary as Secretary of 
the Board at $1,500 ; which will probably leave about $500 for 
my ordinary expenses and services, after defraying the extraordi- 
nary expenses. Well, one thing is certain : if I Hve, and have 
health, I will be revenged on them ; I will do them more than 
$1,500 worth of good. Lectured at Charlestown to a good au- 
dience. 

April 28. . . . On Thursday afternoon, I went to Franklin to 
see my friends. Found my sister removed to another place with her 
family. The old home, the place where I was born, and spent the 
first sixteen years of my life, has passed into other hands. I have 
no ancestral pride about such things, which is generally little else 
than self-love flowing out copiously over connected objects ; yet I 
shall never be able to pass the spot without deep emotions. There 
lived my father, of whom I remember little ; and there, too, lived 
my mother, of whom I not only remember, but of whom, so far as I 
have any good in me, I am. That place, too, has been consecrated 
by the presence of the purest, sweetest, loveUest bemg, — my wife. 
You, my love, know nothing of the sufferings which belonged to 
these associations ; or, if you do, you must have such knowledge and 
faith as to disarm them. 

May 13. . . . Have been reading Miss Edgeworth's excellent 
work on " Practical Education." It is full of instruction. I have 
been delighted to find how often the views therein expressed had 
been written out on my own thinking. Had I ever read the book 
before, I should charge myself with unconscious plagiarism. 

May 21. Returned fi-om Boston to Franklin this evening with 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 103 

bones and muscles all in one hamionious state of aching, — cum 
multis iossihus. Wednesday, met a committee for the county of 
Plymouth, and a few other gentlemen, and made a pretty full and 
explicit statement to them of the supposed views of the Board in 
regard to a seminary for teachers, by way of offering an inducement 
to the county to assist in the establishment of one in that county. 
To-morrow I am to go to Wrentham to confer with them there on 
the same subject. If we get Teachers' Seminaries, it will not be 
because they are of spontaneous growth. 

May 25. On Wednesday, held forth to the orthodox Procrustes 
of Franklin. A pretty good house, for the spring season, and for 
a country place. But in that house how few of those with whom, 
when a boy, I used to assemble ! Of the whole family, but two 
remain. Others, indeed, fill their places ; and yet, even for them, 
there is not less of the pain of anxiety than of the pleasure of affec- 
tion. What is in the unseen future for them ? Towards what goal 
are they speeding ? What cup of sweets or of bitterness is min- 
gling for them? Solicitude asks these questions, and may ask 
them a thousand times. They mil never be answered in season to 
win the good, or turn aside the evil. On the use alone of the 
proper means can any confidence of their safety be founded. And 
in how few points can I reach them, — older, and of a different sex ! 
If my wife were yet upon earth, she would give them such an 
example of lovehness and purity, that it would stand before them 
— fuU in their presence — alike in the light and in the darkness. 
That is gone, and can never be supplied. God save then* innocence, 
their purity, their integTity ! 

May 27. . . . This week, the Board of Education meets. Much 
depends upon our movements to the cause du-ectly, and still more 
to the cause indirectly. If we prosper in our institutions for 
teachers, education will be suddenly exalted ; if not, its progress 
vrill be onward still, but imperceptibly slow. 

June 9. On Monday, the meeting of the Board of Education 
was held. . . . All the questions were decided in accordance with 
my views, and very much to my satisfaction. . . . My first labor is 
to prepare an address to be dehvered on my fall circuit. This is a 
labor of incalculable importance. On the acceptability of my 



104 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

address will, in no considerable degree, depend the success of the 
cause. I can do nothing alone. No one can do any thing alone. 
Others will act with me according as they are pleased with me. 
How necessary, then, that they should be pleased, not with a flashy 
pleasure, a pleasure flashing, and instantly expning, but with an 
abiding satisfaction ; one founded on just, generous, and elevated 
views ; one that will connect itself with the higher faculties, and, by 
being founded upon them, will partake somewhat of their grandeur 
and duration, and not on the lower propensities, that act so 
treacherously, and expire so quickly ! 

After lecturing on the circuit at Nantucket and Edgar- 
town, where he was requested to repeat his lecture in the 
Orthodox church, after having delivered it once, and 
where a deputation of young men met him on his way to 
Holmes Hole, with a request to deliver it there, he 
lectured again at Falmouth, and finished the tour in that 
direction with a convention in Barnstable. To others 
his progress seemed like a triumphal procession, though 
his foreboding fears threw over it all a pall of apprehen- 
sion ; for it was one of his peculiarities, to be ashamed of 
his lectures until he had tested them by' the interest of an 
audience. He had no misgivings about the righteousness 
of his cause, and the general views he took of it, but the 
greatest doubt about his own ability to present them 
adequately. 

Sept. 4. In the morning, I lectured in Hanover. In the after- 
noon, Mr. Rantoul spoke business-like on the subject of Normal 
schools. Mr. Putnam followed him with a speech made up of 
equal parts of sound sense and good feeling. The ex-president 
made a most admnable speech, and one Daniel Webster followed 
him; and it was, indeed, a great day for the cause of common 
schools. 

Sept. 5. Have spent the day at the hospital in Worcester, 
administering the afiairs of that institution. The thing there sought 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 105 

for seems to be, not more happiness, but less suffering ; and why 
is not the latter as high an object as the former ? . . . 

Sept. 11. To-day the meeting of the convention has been in 
Springfield ; and, in point of numbers, a miserable meeting it has 
been. It is at once discouraging and impulsive ; for if they, as 
yet, do so little, there is more — still more — need of effort. 

Sept. 17. Pittsfield. Meeting not numerous, but the two or 
three individuals of themselves equal to a meeting ; Miss Catherine 
Sedge wick, for instance. 

Sept. 20. To-day I have attended a grand temperance conven- 
tion in Northampton. That movement is most encouraging. If 
temperance prevails, then education can prevail ; if temperance fails, 
then education must fail. To-morrow I must address the people 
in this town, where great expectations have been raised. 

Sept. 21. The day has passed ; and, just as the hour for attend- 
ing my address arrived, a forious rain set in, which deterred many 
people, and left rather a sparse population in the great house where 
we assembled. 

Sept. 21. Worcester. Attended the Common-school Association 
meeting yesterday ; and to-day have had a benefit of my own. On 
the whole, I think a little dent has been made in this place. 

Oct. 6. Went to Salem and to Topsfield, where the convention 
for Essex County was appointed. We had a most beautiful day, 
but a most pitifal convention in point of numbers. In point of 
respectability, very good, as they always are. . . . Ah ! how much 
remains to be done ! 

Oct. 8. To-day I have had the pleasure of being introduced to 
George Combe, Esq., of Edinburgh, who has lately anived in this 
country, the author of that extraordinary book, " The Constitution 
of Man," the doctrines of which, I beUeve, will work the same 
change in metaphysical science that Lord Bacon wrought in 
natural. . . . 

Oct. 10. Last evening, went to Taunton. To-day, have had a 
grand convention there. Had the good fortune to be accompanied 
by Greorge Combe, Esq., and lady, from Edinburgh. Found them 
most sensible people ; and him, whom I saw most, fall of philosophy 
and philanthropy. He has, this evening, delivered the first in his 



106 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

course of phrenological lectures in this city, — a good lecture to a 
good house. I am rejoiced at an opportunity to form an acquaint- 
ance with a man so worthy and so profound. 

And thus ends my peregriaating for the current year. I may 
have a meeting in this city ; and then the conventions will be over. 

When I undertook the arduous labor of effecting improvements 
in our common-school system, up to a reasonable and practicable 
degree, I did so with a full conviction that it would require twenty 
or twenty-five years of the continued exertions of some one, accom- 
panied with good fortune, to accomplish the work ; and I think I 
took hold of it with a cordiaUty and resolution which would not be 
worn out in less than a quarter of a century. I am now of the 
opinion that one-twentieth part of the work has been done. 

This is a fitting place in which to say, that, for one con- 
vention authorized to be held by the Secretary, he had 
during this year held four or five, the extra occasions 
being at his own expense. He continued to do this 
through his whole occupation of the office, and was occa- 
sionally assisted by the contributions of friends to a very 
small amount. The same may be said of the Teachers' 
Institutes, a sort of temporary Normal school afterwards 
established. In the Teachers' Institutes he often labored 
alone for days. 

Oct. 12. Have heard Mr. Combe lecture again this evening. He 
considered the effects of size in organs, and of temperaments, — all 
very well. I hope, if I get no new ideas from him, I shall at least 
be able to give some definiteness and firmness to existing ones. He 
is a man of a clear, strong head, and a good heart. 

Oct. 20. For the past week, have been principally engaged in 
preparing the first number of the " Common-school Journal," — a 
periodical, the publication of which I intend soon to commence. . . . 

To-morrow evening I go to Brighton to lecture on my hobby- 
subject. 

Oct. 27. The past week has not brought much to pass. . . . 
Have attended thi-ee excellent lectures by Mr. Combe. They are 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 107 

very interesting, drawing clear distractions between the mixed-up 
viitues and vices of men. 

Last Saturday there appeared in the " New- York Observer" the 
first of a series of articles against the Massachusetts Board of Educa- 
tion, and probably their Secretary, professing to inquire into the bear- 
ings of the action of the Board in regard to religious teaching in the 
schools. They ai-e addressed to Dr. Humphi-eys. Probably they 
will have no difficulty in making out that the Board is irrehgious ; 
for with them religion is synonymous with Calvin's five points. 
As for St. James's definition of it, " Pure religion and undefiled 
is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction," &c. ; and that 
other definition, " Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
thy Grod," — the Orthodox have quite outgrown these obsolete no- 
tions, and have got a religion which can at once gratify their self- 
esteem and destructiveness. They shall not unelineh me from my 
labors for mankind. 

Oct. 29. . . . Have heard Mr. Combe again this evening. He 
is a lover of truth. If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget 
greatness, and ask for truth, and he will find both. 

Nov. 10. It is a long time smce I have made an entry here, 
because I have been deeply engaged, and have had nothing of per- 
manent interest to record. To-day I have sent the last of my man- 
uscript for the first number of the " Common-school Journal." It 
is an enterprise whose success I look forward to with great anxiety. 
It will cost me great labor. I hope to be repaid in the benefits it 
may produce. My reputation in no small degree rests upon it. 
Oh ! give me good health, a clear head, and a heart overflowing with 
love to mankind. 

Nov. 15. Constant engagements prevent my entering my 
thoughts lately so often as I would. Mr. Combe's course of lec- 
tures, which is just finished, has occupied me a good deal, and 
to-night a splendid entertainment has been given him. To-morrow 
evening, I lecture at Chelsea. And so the time flies ; and every day 
I have to ask myself what impression I am making, what I am doiag 
in the great cause I have in hand. Grod prosper it, and enable me 
to labor for it ! 

Nov. 17. To-day the first number of the " Common-school 



108 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Journal ' ' has been issued. With this I hope to awaken some at- 
tention to the great subject I have in hand. It must be made an 
efficient auxihary, if possible. I know it will involve gi-eat labor ; 
but the results at the end, not the labor at the beginning, are the 
things to be regarded. 

This periodical fully answered the purpose for which it 
was established. It was continued for ten years, and con- 
tains not only Mr. Mann's best thoughts upon all the 
topics treated in it, but all the Annual Reports made to 
the Board during his Secretaryship. Friends contributed 
valuable papers to it also. It is a work which has been 
sought by those interested in education all over the 
world, even in the heart of Asia ; and the numbers left 
after the work stopped had a regular sale as long as 
complete sets could be made out from them. In looking 
forward to the probable condition of our country after the 
close of this war, when the whole extensive area of it will 
be opened to free institutions, of which public schools will 
be an inevitable feature, certainly following the occupa- 
tion of any portion of its territory by Northern men, a re- 
publication of it may be desirable. It would be the best 
possible accompaniment of the introduction of a common- 
school system in any region where the political conditions 
of things make such a system possible. Mr. Mann had 
frequent correspondence with Southern gentlemen upon 
the subject; but it always ended in the conviction that 
there could be no common schools established in a region 
where equality before the law was not even desired for all 
classes of white men. In the rural districts it was simply 
impossible. New Orleans is the only city where an at- 
tempt was made ; and there, under the judicious super- 
intendence of Mr. J. Shaw, something very creditable was 
effected ; though it could in no wise compare with the 
results to be obtained where justice was, to say the least, 
the prevailing theory. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 109 

Nov. 25. Since my last entry, I have suffered from severe in- 
disposition, and been utterly unable to accomplish any of the labors 
upon my hands. This is most unfortunate ; for time grows short, 
while labor is long. I am a perpetual memento to myself of the 
value of health, and therefore of the pains that should be be- 
stowed in childhood and infancy in taking the necessary steps for 
its production, and in bestowing the habits, which, except under 
most adverse circumstances, will insure its enjoyment. Could I 
live my life over again, I think I should adapt the means for its 
better preservation and invigoration ; and yet, if, with my present 
knowledge, I do not obey the laws upon which it is dependent, how 
can I be sure, that, were I permitted to re-enact the scenes of life, I 
should be more wise, though I might be more learned? But, though 
the past is gone, the future is, to some extent, my own. 

If any assault was made upon the Board, it was Mr. 
Mann's habit to disarm opposition, if possible, privately; 
and the following is an attempt of that kind. The prog- 
ress of the work was often impeded by such assaults, 
arising from private disappointments of book-makers or 
ambitious men. Mr. Storrs was ever afterwards a cor- 
dial friend. 

Boston, Jan. 19, 1839. 

Rev. Dr. Stores. 

Dear Sir, — Three days ago, I met my friend Mr. Louis 
Dwight ; when our conversation turned upon the strictures lately 
made in the "Boston Recorder" upon the Board of Education 
and myself. 

I said to Mr. Dwight that those animadversions were without a 
shadow of foundation ; that they were cruel ; that they were making 
my labors, already greater than I feel able to perform, still more 
arduous and anxious. Yesterday, Mr. Dwight was kind enough to 
call on me with the editor. The latter opened the subject of the 
articles in a very proper spirit and manner, and professed a desire to 
have any misapprehension rectified. I referred him to the extraor- 
dinary meaning which had been forced upon the word " sectarian- 



110 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

ism " in the prospectus of the " Common-school Journal ; " to the 
declaration of the existence of gi'ound for suspicion that I had ma- 
tured in my own miud and deliberately resolved on a plan for the 
"exclusion of the religion of the Bible from our schools;" to 
the farther declaration, that a simple perusal of the documents of 
the Board had caused suspicions to spring up in all parts of the 
Commonwealth that such a plan was concerted ; and that the "mere 
existence of the suspicions was strong presumptive evidence that 
they were not wholly without foundation;" and what was per- 
haps worst of all in its natural effects, an expression, made in an 
apparent spu'it of charity, of a strong inclination to believe that the 
Seeretaiy is honest in his belief that the Board of Education cannot, 
without violation of law, allow books that treat on religious sub- 
jects to be placed on the desks of our schoobooms. I then stated to 
him that the Board had never published any document authoiizing 
the slightest suspicion, either against themselves or against me, like 
the one here refeiTed to ; that, so far from my entertaining a behef 
that it would be illegal to have any books treating of rehgious 
subjects on the desks of the schoofrooms, the very contrary was one 
of the most prominent points in my Report of last year, whereia I had 
at once exposed and deplored the absence of moral and rehgious in- 
struction in our schools, and had alleged the probable reason for it ; 
viz., that school committees had not found books, expository of the 
docti-ines of revealed religion, which were not also denominational, 
and therefore, in then view, within the law, and not that books 
which did not iufiinge the law should be excluded. 

He then told me that you were the author of those articles ; and 
both he and Mr. Dwight seemed desnous that I should address you 
a note on the subject, and send you a copy of the only document 
which has yet been publi.shed by the Board, — they supposing that 
you had been misled by some letters addressed to Dr. Humphreys, 
which letters were instigated by the fact that the Board and myself 
would not become instnimental in introducing the American Sunday- 
school Librai-y into our common schools. 

Allow me to say, sir, that, by an examination of the law, you will 
find that the Board have no authority, direct or indirect, over 
school-books ; and that you wUl see, by a letter addressed to me by 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. Ill 

name, a week ago, through the columns of the " Recorder," that a 
jealousy exists among your religious friends, even of a recommenda- 
tion of school-books by the Board. I will also state, that by the 
rules and regulations for the government of Normal schools, where 
the Board has power, they had decided, before the appearance of 

P 's wicked pamphlet, that the principles of piety and morality 

common to all sects of Christians should be taught in every Normal 
school, and that a portion of the Scriptures should be daily read. 

I hope, sir, that my motives in writing this letter may be justly 
appreciated. I loathe controversy, especially at a time when the 
efforts of every good man are necessaiy in the work of improvement. 
I have no spirit for controversy, nor time nor strength to devote to 
it. To exclude all chance of my being involved in it, I must beg 
you to consider this letter as confidential, except so far as it regards 
Mr. Willis and Mr. Dwight, at whose request it is written. 

Yours very respectfully, 

HORACE MANN. 



P. S. — The "Trumpet" directly and repeatedly has charged 
the Board with the intention to introduce religion into the schools, 
from the same evidence which others interpret so differently. 

Boston, Feb. 11, 1839. 

GrEORGB CoMBB, EsQ. My very dear Sir, — ... We are all 
very glad to hear of your success and acceptability where you have 
been. When any meeting occurs among the members of your class, 
you are always remembered. We see that there will be a new 
eai-th, at least, if not a new heaven, when your philosophical and 
moral doctrines prevail. It has been a part of my religion for 
many years that the earth is not to remain in its present condition 
forever. You are furnishing the means by which the body of 
society is to be healed of some of its wounds heretofore deemed 
irremediable. They are doctrines which cause a man's soul to 
expand beyond the circle of his visiting-cards ; that recognize the 
race as beings capable of pleasure and pain, of elevation or debase- 



112 LIFE OF HOEACE MiLNN. 

ment. Many men have no more realizing belief of the human race 
than they have of 

" Anthropophagi, and men 
Whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders ; " 

and I have always thought that this practical disbelief in the 
existence of the creature had, at least, as bad an effect upon the 
character as a disbehef of the Creator. 

You observe, in your letter, that your audiences fell off from 
eight to ten per cent in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, when 
you lectured on the moral sentiment. Now, my dear sir, are you 
not mistaken in this statement, in regai'd to Boston? We all 
observed othei-wise. We think there was an increase in your 
audience here, both in numbers, and in attention, and in pleasure 
too, if that were possible, when you expatiated upon the foundations 
of justice, reverence, and goodness. Pardon me for being a little 
sensitive on the subject ; for we should think our character some- 
what involved in it. We think, on this point, we could not defend 
ourselves by quoting from Dr. Franklin, who said that revivals in 
religion always made him think of a scarcity of grain : those who 
had enough said nothing about it, while those who were destitute 
made all the clamor. . . . 

Please make my regards acceptable to Mrs. Combe ; and beKeve 
me when I say that I am a better man for having become acquainted 
with your mind and yourself. I hope aU your leisure time wUl be 
spent in our neighborhood. 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Boston, March 25, 1839. 

Gr. CoMBE, Esq., Philadelphia. My very dear Sir, — . . . 
There have been some striking conversions, since you were here, to 
the religious truths contained in your " Constitution of Man." 
Some of these have happened under my own ministry. A young 
graduate of one of our colleges wrote me, a few months since, to 
inquire in what manner he could best qualify himself for teaching. 
He had then been employed in teaching for two years, after having 
received a degree. I told him, that, in the absence of Normal 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 113 

schools, I thought he had better take up his residence in this city, 
visit the schools, make himself acquainted with all the various pro- 
cesses which various individuals adopt to accomplish the same thing, 
and read all the best books that can be found on the subject. He 
accordingly came ; and, when he appHed to me for a list of books, I, 
of course, named your "Constitution" as the first in the series. 
After about a fortnight he called on me, and said he had read it 
through with great pleasure, but did not think he had mastered the 
whole philosophy. A few days after, he came again, not a little 
disturbed : he had read it again, comparing it with his former 
notions (for he was highly orthodox) , and found that the glorious 
world of laws which you describe was inconsistent with the miser- 
able world of expedients in which he had been accustomed to dwell. 
I spent an entire evening with him, and endeavored to explain to 
him that your system contained all there is of truth in orthodoxy ; 
that the animal nature of man is first developed ; that, if it con- 
tinues to be the active and the only guiding power through life, it 
causes depravity enough to satisfy any one ; but if the moral nature, 
in due time, puts forth its energies, obtains ascendency, and controls 
and administers all the actions of life in obedience to the highest 
laws, there will be righteousness enough to satisfy any one ; that, 
if he chose, he might call the point, where the sentiments prevailed 
over the propensities, the hour of regeneration ; nor was the phrase 
— a second birth — too strong to express the change ; that this 
change might be wrought on the hearing of a sermon, or when 
sufiering bereavement, or in the silence and secrecy of meditation, 
or on reading Mr. Combe's " Constitution of Man; " and, as Grod 
operates upon our mental organization through means, these might 
be the means of sanctifying us. He adopted my views on the sub- 
ject, and is now, I beheve, a convert beyond the danger of apostasy. 
But, my dear sir, I have occupied so much space with this case of 
conversion, that I have little for other things I wished to say. . . . 

Very truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

March — . This afternoon, attended the anniversary meeting of 
the Warren-street Chapel Association, and heard a very interesting 



114 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

report read by Rev. Charles Barnard. No remarks were made. 
Fifteen hundred children have been connected with the institution 
since it was opened. Had Sir J. Hersehel been here to tell of 
fifteen hundred new stars which he had catalogued in the southern 
hemisphere, would he not have excited a much deeper interest, and 
had many more hearers ? 

This institution seeks out those children who seem to be outside 
of all the favorable influences of civilization. As shadows ai-e 
always deepest where the light is brightest, those who are in the 
shadow of the bright light of civilization are in the deepest darkness. 
Our mstitutions for moral, social, and religious improvement, seem 
to have, in most instances, answered their end, or fulfilled their 
promise, when the community have been brought within the circle 
of their action ; but a portion of the community are outside that 
circle, and therefore ai-e even worse situated, relatively, than they 
would be in a less advanced state of society. These need an 
institution like the chapel. 

March 31. Engaged to lecture four times this week, at Lynn, 
Salem, and Newburyport. Oh my poor body ! 

June 13. . . . Went to Nantucket, saw Mr. Pierce, obtained the 
consent of the school committee for his discharge fi-om his engage- 
ments to them, and returned yesterday worn down with fatigue. 
But, at last, I believe we have a competent principal for one of 
our Normal schools; and this is a subject for unbounded re- 
joicing. 

June 21. Attended on Thursday a meeting of the Executive 
Committee of the Board to act upon a proposition from Prof. New- 
man. . . . Thus the two schools at Lexington and Barre are now 
provided for, and I am relieved of a weight of anxiety and care 
which has been almost too much for me. 

The subject of Normal schools now became the one 
which Mr. Mann considered of the first importance, and 
Mr. Pierce proved to have qualifications for his vocation 
even beyond his expectations. He not only knew how to 
teach with precision, but he evoked from his pupils, for 
the reception of his teaching, such a force of conscience 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 115 

as insured thorough study and assimilation of whatever 
was taught. When Mr. Mann first visited his school in 
Nantucket, he was charmed by the evidence of power that 
the whole management and all the recitations of the 
school evinced ; and, when he spoke of it afterward to 
gentlemen of the place, one of the most respectable citi- 
zens said to him that he had lived forty years on the 
South Shore, and could always tell Mr. Pierce's scholars, 
whenever he met them in the walks of life, by their mode 
of transacting business, and by all their mental habits, 
which were conscientious, exact, reliable. Mr. Pierce 
had taught in that vicinity the greater part of those 
years. From that time, Mr. Mann had his eye upon him ; 
and he always felt that to Mr. Pierce was chiefly owing 
the very rapid and unquestionable value, in all eyes, of 
this new movement. Those who were conversant with his 
modes of instruction, and of appeal to the sense of intel- 
lectual and moral duty in his pupils, can pick them out, 
even now, from other teachers. This characteristic of 
the school was handed down many years through the 
influence of his early pupils, two of whom were professors 
in Antioch College. 

June 14. Last evening and tMs, attended Mr. Espy's lectures 
on the Law of Storms. He certainly starts upon a fair philosophic 
basis, and seems to advance nothing visionary or extravagant. , No 
doubt the motion of every particle both of wind and vapor has its 
law, and so of all particles in combination ; and why should not ob- 
servation and reflection discover what that law is ? ... So far as we 
know the operations of the Deity, he seems to work by fixed, inva- 
riable laws ; and special interpositions give place, in the opinions of 
men, just as fast as science advances. This gives glorious augury. 

July 2. To-morrow we go to Lexington to launch the first Nor- 
mal school on this side the Atlantic. I cannot indulge at this late 
hour of the night, and in my present state of fatigue, in an expression 
of the train of thought which the contemplation of this event awa- 



116 LITE OF HOEACE MANN. 

kens in my mind. Much must come of it, either of good or of 
ill. I am sanguine in my faith that it wlII be the former. But the 
good will not come itself. That is the reward of effort, of toil, of 
wisdom. These, as far as possible, let me furnish. Neither time 
nor care, nor such thought as I am able to originate, shall be wanting 
to make this an era in the welfare and prosperity of our schools ; 
and, if it is so, it will then be an era in the welfare of mankind. 

July 3. The day opened with one of the most copious rains we 
have had this rainy season. Only three persons presented them- 
selves for examination for the Normal School in Lexington. In 
point of numbers, this is not a promising commencement. How 
much of it is to be set down to the weather, how much to the fact 
that the operdng of the school has been delayed so long, I cannot 
teU. What remains but more exertion, more and more, until it 
must succeed? 

Atig. 11. Still at Cape Cottage (near Portland), where I have 
been enjoying the society of Mr. Combe, who is, on the whole, the 
completest philosopher I have ever known. Ideas so comprehen- 
sive and just, feelings so humane and so true, I think I have never 
known before combined in the same individual. It has indeed been 
a most agreeable, and I think instructive, visit to me. . . . Mr. Combe 
comprehends how he is made, and why he was made, and he acts as 
the laws of his nature indicate ; and, by submittmg to the hmitations 
which the Deity has imposed on his nature, he is enabled to perform 
the duties which the Deity requires of it. 

Aug. 19. Great Barrington. ... To make an impression in 
Berkshire in regard to the schools is hke attempting to batter down 
Gribraltar with one's fist. . . . My health fails. I may perish in the 
cause ; but I will not abandon it, and will only increase my efforts 
as it needs them more. 

Aug. ^1. Greenfield. There was not encouragement at North- 
ampton. Ah me ! I have hold of so large a mountain, there is 
much danger that I shall break my own back in trying to lift it ! 
I could not shake the dust, bu.t only the mud, off my feet against 
them. But to have any Ul feehng toward them would only turn 
apathy into hostility ; and as for despondence, the cause is so glo- 
rious that it must dispel that. ... I wish the county of Frankhn 



LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN. 117 

could have the spirit of Frankhn. In this town much has been 
done, though, I fear, not in the right way. 

Sept. 1. Heard a sermon this morning from the Rev. of 

. I do not wonder that ministers produce so little effect upon 

their audiences. They attempt to write more than almost any 
mortal can accomphsh. The consequence is, that, with all possible 
diligence and effort, they must write mainly their first thoughts. 
They have no time for culling, but must fill their baskets with 
whatever grows rankest and is first found. This induces a habit 
of writing not only without premeditation, but without meditation. 
All thoughts ai*e made equally welcome. Out comes a stream of 
commonplaces. First, there is a simple want of excitement ; then 
the sermons become sedative and soporific ; then they supersede opium 
as a narcotic. Thus ends the minister's power. Thus are turned 
into weakness the mighty elements given them to use. Without con- 
tinued effort, the mind loses its power to make effort. Eventually, 
therefore, even a strong mind, being compelled to write weak ser- 
mons, is reduced to the level of its own productions. 

To-morrow the convention. In Berkshire, they explained and 
excused the thinness of the meeting because the day was fair ; in 
Northampton, because it was stormy. The truth lies in the dearth, 
or death, of interest in the subject. That interest I have got 
to create. The edifice is not only to be reared, but the very mate- 
rials out of which it is to be constituted are to be grown. Can I 
grow them ? — that is the question. In part, perhaps, may be the 
answer. Some one else may arise to form them into a noble and 
everlasting temple. Mine may be the labor, and another's the honor. 
Well, if I knew the work would go on when my labors cease, I 
would not touch the question of ultimate honor. Grive me the cer- 
tainty that the cause shall prosper, and I will waive all question 
about honor ; nay, even in the uncertamty whether it will succeed 
at all, it shall have my extremest exertions. 

Sept. 5. . . . Spent the morning at Barre. Twelve- young ladies 
and eight young gentlemen admitted to the Normal School. Shall 
undoubtedly have thirty by the end of the month. This is a fair 
beginning. May it go on prosperously ! This afternoon, the Gov- 
ernor (Briggs) delivered a very acceptable address, touching upon 



118 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

the origin, progress, advantages, and hopes of a Normal school. . . . 
In the midst of adverse events blowing on opposite sides of my 
boat, it is my business to keep it in trim> . . . 

Boston, Sept. 11, 18.39. 

Gr. Combe, Esq. My very dear Sir, — Since I had the pain 
of parting with you and Mrs. Combe, I have been reahzing 
the existence of perpetual motion ; otherwise I would not have 
allowed so much time to pass by without reminding myself, by 
writing to you, of the pleasant and instructive visit which I made at 
Portland. Never have I passed a week in my life more congenial 
to my coronal region. The quiet cottage, and the half-earth, half- 
ocean landscape, are vividly present to my view ; and the old rocks 
upon the shore, where the philosopher sat and discoursed wisdom, 
are as firmly fixed in my memoiy as they are in theii* own bed. It 
wiU take a long time, and much beating by storms, to wear them 
out. And when I think of the sail in the boat, and the rides in 
the old chaise, I will not say that I grow sentimental ; but I regret 
that I had any other brain-work to do, which prevented me from 
enjoying them as I ought. 

Since I left you, I have held six educational conventions in parts 
of the State nearly two hundi-ed miles from each other, and in the 
inteimediate places, besides being present and assisting in the 
examinations and opening of the Normal School at Barre. The 
opening of the two Normal schools, and the finding of two suitable 
and acceptable individuals to take charge of them, cost me an 
incredible amount of anxiety. I believe I counted over all the men 
in New England by tale before I could find any who would take 
the schools "without a fair prospect of raining them. But I trust 
we have succeeded. At any rate, my nightmare begins to go 
ofi". I wiU not trouble you by stating the difficulties of the 
problem given to me for solution ; which was to do right, and not 
offend the ultra-orthodox. I needed your philosophy, i.e. equa- 
nimity, for that task. 

I have heard but the expression of one opinion on the subject of 
your coming here for another course of lectures. . . . 

I cannot express to you my sense of undeserved honor for the 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 119 

insertion of my name in the new edition of your lectures on educa- 
tion. The first aspect in which the fact presented itself to my mind, 
when the dedication was shown to me, was, that it might render the 
expression of my sincere opinions about the worth of your works a 
little suspicious, as people might think that those views, which were 
dictated by all the judgment I have, possibly came from my grati- 
tude for your kindness and the expression of your good will. But 
I will try to manage it in such a way that you shall lose as little as 
possible for conferruig upon me an honor I did not deserve. . . . 
My kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Combe. 

HOEACE MANN. 

Sept. 14. On Thursday I went to Lexington, where I spent 
the whole day in Mr. Pierce's school ; and a most pleasant day it 
was. Highly as I had appreciated his talent, he surpassed the ideas 
I had formed of his ability to teach, and ia that prerequisite of all 
successful teaching, the power of winning the confidence of his 
pupils. This surpassed what I have ever seen before in any school. 
The exercises were conducted ia the most thorough manner : the 
principle being stated, and then applied to various combiaations of 
facts, so that the pupils were not only led to a clearer apprehension 
of the principle itself, but taught to look through combinations of 
facts, however difierent, to find the principle which underUes them 
all ; and they were taught, too, that it is not the form of the fact 
which determines the principle, but the principle which gives char- 
acter to the fact. . . . 

Sept. 21. This morning, bade good-by to Nantucket. Did all 
parts of the State receive me as cordially, and pay half as much 
attention to my views, as the good people of Nantucket, there would 
soon be a common-school revolution in the State. But this is far 
from being the case : therefore I have so much the more to do. 
Many people kindly express sympathy with me in regard to the 
embarrassments which I encounter, and the obstacles thrown in my 
path ; and are pleased to say that they have feared that I shall be 
discouraged. They do not know the stuff" I am made of. 

Sept. 23. To-moiTOw is Convention Day for Barnstable. The 
prospect is very unpromising. Those are absent, who, in former 



120 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

years, have contributed to the interest of the meetings. Barnstable 
does not seem to have felt any tingle, which, in other places, has 
begun an excitement. When the tool is dull, or the material tough, 
ptit on more strength ! 

Sept. 24. The day is over. As miserable a convention as can 
well be conceived, K the Lord will, I wiU ; that is, I will work 
in this moral as well as physical sand-beach of a county until I can 
get some new things to gi-ow out of it. 

Sept. 29. Plymouth. The cause is getting ahead in Plymouth 
County, beyond question. A large house was well filled here all 
day. 

I am surprised to hear people express their surprise that I do not 
tire of this business. Why should I tire of such a cause ? If I 
meet with encouragement, can any thing be more congenial to my 
feelings than to contemplate the progress of so glorious a movement? 
If, on the other hand, obstacles are thrown in its way, what higher 
service can any one perform than to endeavor to remove them? 
The more opposition, the more need of effort. 

Oct. 1. Dedham. To-day, have had what must be called the 
convention in Dedham, — a meagre, spiritless, discouraging affair. 
A few present, and all who were present chilled, — choked by their 
own fewness. Surely, if the schoolmaster is abroad in this county, 
I should be glad to meet him. So it is : but it must be otherwise ; 
perhaps not in my day ; but, while my day lasts, I wiU do something 
to have it othei-wise. 

Oct. 13. A tolerable week as to brains. I have made some 
little progress in digesting the form of a Report. . . . Heard, a short 
time since, of the destitute condition of many Irish children on the 
railroad between Springfield and the New- York line. To-day, 

wrote to Mr. that I would be responsible for the expense of 

their instruction, and that he might engage teachers, at least for 
three months from the 1st of November. 

Oct. 27. . . . To-morrow I begin the great work of getting out 
the "Abstract of School Returns," — a gigantic labor; but I go 
into it " choke-fuU " of resolve. Come on, labor, if you will bring 
health in your company. 

Nov. 17. Laboring at my Abstract and Report with unabated 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 121 

vigor. How tte granite mass gives way under tlie perpetual 
droppings of industry ! Oh for continuance in a good degTee of 
healtli ! and then exertion in this glorious cause will be a pastime. 
Neglected, hghtly esteemed among men, cast out, as it were, from 
the regards of society, I seem to myself to know that the time will 
come when education will be reverenced as the highest of earthly 
employments. That time I am never to see, except with the eye 
of faith ; but I am to do something that others may see it, and 
realize it sooner than they otherwise would. Their enjoyment may 
be greater than miae ; but if my duty hastens that enjoyment, then 
that duty is greater than thens. And shall I shrink when called 
to the post of the higher duty ? 

The above passage is a strong proof of how little the 
public estimated the value of such labors as Mr. Mann 
was engaged in at that time. He was made to feel keenly 
that the President of the State Senate, and a lawyer in 
lucrative practice, held a very different place in society 
from the Secretary of the Board of Education on a small 
salary. 

Dec. — . During the week, I had an informal proposition to go 
to Missouri, as president of a college, with a salary of three thousand 
a year, a splendid house, gardens, &c. ; but, as far as my own 
preferences are concerned, I would rather remain here, and work 
for mere bread, than go there for the wealth of the great Valley of 
the Mississippi. Oh, may I prosper in this ! I ask no other 
reward for all my labors. This is my only object of ambition ; and, 
if this is lost, what tie wiU bind me to earth ? 

Dec. 29. The Board met and adjourned. Did the occasion of 
reading a Report to them occur often, I certainly could not survive 
it. But it has passed. 

Those who know the estimation in which Mr. Mann 
was held by his friends will perceive that this fearful 
despondency was very much due to the utter prostration 
of strength, which, at this time, followed unusual labors. 



122 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Some of liis friends would have been thankful beyond 
measure to have taken him into their families as guest, 
boarder, or on any terms he would prescribe ; and urged 
him in the warmest terms to come to them : but he shrunk 
from any thing that interfered with his total independence, 
and was unwilling to carry his heavy heart and failing 
health into any happy circle. His solitary room, however, 
was forcibly invaded by those who loved him, when he 
disappeared from their view for any length of time. 

Jan. 5, 1840. Sunday. With the close of the old year, and 
the incoming of the new, I had many thoughts in my mind, but no 
power to say them. The year 1839, from ill health, from opposi- 
tion in the sacred cause which I have wholly at heart, and from 
being called upon to do impossible things by the Boai-d of Educa- 
tion, has been the most painful year — save the year — that I have 
ever suffered. But it has passed. I have come out of it. The 
cause has come out of it, and is beginning to give signs of vitaUty. 
I enter upon another year not without some gloom and apprehen- 
sion, for pohtical madmen are raising voice and arm against the 
Board ; but I enter it with a determination, that, I trust, will prove 
a match for secondary causes. If the First Cause has doomed our 
overthrow, I give it up ; but, if any thiug short of that, I hold on. 
Three lectui-es this week. 

Jan. 26. This week, on Wednesday, Grovemor Morton gave his 
inaugural address. He cut the Board of Education entirely. 
Probably he did not know of its existence. He has got to know 
it. He has made a mistake on his own personal account, I believe. 
But time will make further developments. 

Feb. 2. Some partisan men are making efforts to demoHsh the 
Board of Education; but all the jealousies which ignorance en- 
genders cannot be entered and recorded here. It is my fortune to 
stand as the pioneer of this movement ; and, like other pioneers, I 
cannot expect to escape unscathed. But it is a cause worth being 
sacrificed for : and, first, I will try to conquer ; but, if conquest is 
impossible, then I will try to bear. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 123 

Feh. 16. Looked over the last proof-sheet of my Report on 
Friday. It will be distributed to-morrow. What fate awaits it, I 
must wait to see. It has caused me great anxiety ; and, if it causes 
anxiety to my friends, we shall be a sorry company. But it has 
aimed at truth ; and if it brings truth down, and allows aU to par- 
ticipate Lu it and to enjoy it, the labor it has cost will be repaid 
with abounding joy. I have done my best in the circumstances, and 
must stiffen my back to take consequences, 

Boston, Feb. 22, 1840. 

Gr. Combe, Esq., New Haven. My very dear Sir, — It is 
now almost two months since I received your kind parting, and, as 
yet, unanswered note. It grieved me to be sick ; but as a conse- 
quence of it was your departure from the city, without another 
interview, and another expression both of the benefits and the plea- 
sure I had derived from your acquaintance, I was almost more sorry 
for the effect than for the cause. After that capsize, I righted 
pretty soon : and need enough of it there was ; for the boat in which 
some of the interests of education seem to be embarked has been 
assailed by cross-currents, head-flaws, and some monsters of the 
deep. But Palinurus has not slept, and she will weather the storm. 
First came the Grovernor's Address, which committed that high 
treason to truth which consists in perverting great principles to 
selfish ends. Then the cry of expense has been raised ; and, were 
an Englishman to hear it, he would think the Board of Education 
was trying to outvie the British national debt. But it will end in 
ahenating a portion of the public mind from the cause, which it will 
cost us another year's labor to reclaim. 

What an enemy to the human race is a party-man ! To get 
ashore himself is his only object : he cares not who else sinks. 

There are some good men in Albany; which proves that Nature 
will have some good souls, notwithstanding all efforts to baffle her. 
There was your friend Mr. Dean of Albany, and Mr. Barnard, now 
representative in Congress, and Gen. Dix, formerly Secretary of 
State, who are worthy to be remembered in any consultation about 
destroying the city. 



124 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

I have just been listening to a course of lectures on geology. This 
is truly a magnificent science. It has kept my causality and vene- 
ration in a state of gi-eat activity. I never enjoyed but one course 
of lectures more than that. The fact that made it most delightfal 
to me was, that many of our granite, felspar, hornblende, and mica 
State Orthodox attended; and before all these, the lecturer, who is 
known to be one of the elect, assaulted, bombarded, battered, and 
demolished the sis-days' account of the creation, until I sometimes 
fancied I could hear Moses himself crying out, " Et tu, Brute?" 
Probably they would not have heard the same thing from any other 
man extant. He not only enlarged the creation immensely, but he 
reduced the Deluge to a mere puddle. He said there was not an 
existing phenomenon on eaii-h which could certainly be traced to it. 
All this broke up thi'ough the primary and secondaiy formations of 
bigotry, just as his own volcanic fires rushed up through the corre- 
sponding geological strata. When, in the last lecture but one, he 
came to the upheaving action of earthquakes and volcanoes, he only 
described in the physical world what I had seen going on every day, 
so far as his audience was concerned, in the moral. He attempted 
to reconcile himself to Moses; but that made one think of the two 
men (is it not in " Gil Bias"?) who shook hands, and were enemies 
ever afterwards. . . . 

Fai-ewell to you both, and believe me ever, with the greatest 

esteem, Yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

March 15. This week has been wholly devoted to preparations 
to meet the atrocious attack upon the Board of Education. The 
question still pends ; but I am too much exhausted and worn out to 
comment upon it. I am compelled to go to New York ; and the 
chance is that I must be absent when the day of trial comes. This 
is bad, but inevitable. I must submit; but the cause shall not die, 
if I can sustain or resuscitate it. New modes may be found, if old 
ones fail. Perseverance, perseverance, and so on a thousand times, 
and ten thousand times ten thousand. 

March 19. New York. Was obliged to leave Boston yester- 
day in the midst of the Export of the Education Committee for abol- 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 125 

ishing the Board. Of course, the question is -andoubtedly decided ; 
but I remain in ignorance, and must do so until to-morrow morning, 
when, on arrival of the mails, I shall learn its fate. Let it come. 
If the Board is abolished, it will show how much is to be done in 
this great cause ; and I think it will only insphe me with new zeal 
to accomphsh it. If, on the other hand, it triumphs, then its claim 
to public favor must be evidenced by the good it shall accomphsh. 
In either case, I stand almost pledged, if right, to advance the right ; 
if wrong, to repair the wrong. 

March 21. Heard yesterday from Boston that the bigots and 
vandals had been signally defeated in their wicked attempts to de- 
stroy the Board of Education : 182 in favor of the attempt, 245 
against it. I have not as yet been able to bring my mind into a 
state to describe the merits of the ease. Perhaps I may do it some 
time ; perhaps it is not worth doing : but the letters of congratula- 
tion over their defeat show how much others enjoy it. 

Yesterday Mr. and Mrs. Combe arrived here from New Haven ; 
and we soon struck up a bargain to travel together to the West. 
From this I promise myself great pleasure and advantage. To be 
able to enjoy for a month the society of that man will famiHarize 
great truths to my mind, if it does not communicate many new 
ones. The utile et dulce could rarely be more happily united. 

March 22. . . . Another huzza fi'om Boston to-day on account 
of the defeat of our enemies. 

March 28. Washington. . . . This is the first time I have 
ever seen the Capitol. This is the first day I ever set my foot 
upon soil polluted by slavery. This day, on witnessing groups 
of colored persons, such feelings have poured into my mind as I 
have no language to express. They are too strong to be formed 
into words. To-night, after many days of excitement, my mind is 
not in a condition to declare what is in it. At some future time, I 
hope these emotions may take body and life. 

March 30. Yesterday attended meeting in the Capitol, and 
heard a roaration. It might, perhaps, be called a sermon ; but it 
had not one idea calculated to give clearer views of truth or stronger 
feelings of duty. Oh ! when will the world be free fi-om the drag- 
chain of most of the clergy ? 



/ 



126 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

To-day I have been in the hall of the House of Representatives 
and ia the Senate Chamber ; have seen the rooms, and heard the 
magnates. My impression of the magnificenee of the former has 
been increased more than that of the greatness of the latter. Oh ! 
how much good might these men do, if they would forget the inter- 
ests of party, and attend to the welfare of mankind ! Civihzation 
would bound forward with unwonted speed, if the tenth part of the 
talent or a hundredth part of the resources were devoted to the 
amelioration of the race, which are now neutralized by the conflicts 
of parties. Would each party strive for the whole, each would be 
vastly more benefited than it now is. 

March 31. Baltimore. . . . Ascended the Washington Monu- 
ment, 180 feet m height, and cost $200,000, — a great height and a 
great sum ; but they were for a great man. He left his monument, 
however, in the improved condition of his country : that is the 
only noble monu.ment. 

April 5. Wheeling. . . . The Alleghanies are not stupendous 
to the perceptive, but only to the reflective, faculties. The geolo- 
gical characteristics were full of interest. As we rode toward their 
summit, the strata were almost uniformly inclining upward. We 
then passed on about fifty miles, surrounded only by hills of some- 
what more than ordinary magnitude. Here the strata were more 
nearly homontal : they were of trap. When we came to the very 
summit, they were of granite ; and, the moment we began to descend 
from the western brow, the trap re-appeared, and the dip was toward 
the west. I was lost in amazement in contemplating the vital 
forces that upheaved this ponderous mass. The vastness of the 
power, and the length of time that has elapsed since it was exerted, 
were too immense for my comprehension, and made me yield myself 
to a feehng of wonder and reverence. Bald Mountain is said to be 
the highest point on this road. Laurel Hill is the westernmost battle- 
ment. From this the descent is rapid ; so rapid, indeed, that, m half 
an hour, I think our thermometer must have risen ten or fifteen de- 
grees. The woods hitherto had circumscribed our prospect to the 
narrowest limits; and, as the road wound around the sides of hills 
which it could not directly surmount, our view extended forward only 
a few rods. But at this point, all at once, as though a curtain had 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 127 

been witMrawn, the Great Valley of the West burst upon us. Away 
in the horizon, as far as the eye could reach, in every direction, we 
saw all that the convexity of the earth's surface would allow. It 
was like a glance from a lofty headland upon the outstretched plain 
of the ocean, which, though level, seems to rise in the distance. 
So here we seemed to see distant and gigantic mountains ; and we 
only knew by reflection, that what seemed to be a circular wall of 
distant mountains was only an apparent elevation, owing to immense 
extent, where miles in length made only an inch in height. It was 
only in this way that we approximated to any adequate conception 
of the vastness of the region which we saw, and of that immeasura- 
bly vaster region which we could not see, — of that world of terri- 
tory which lay beyond the reach of vision and below the line of 
light. 

April 8. Cincinnati. ... I was told by the pilot of the boat in 
which we came from Wheehng to this place, that, according to the 
best estimate he could form, the distance from Cuicinnati to Pitts- 
burg is about 470 miles, and that the River Monongahela is navi- 
gable by steamboats ninety miles above Pittsburg. I am satisfied 
that the only way to get an adequate idea of this country is to travel 
through it. No imagination can give the reahzing sense of its 
vastness, which is caused by that deepening, day after day, of the 
impression made by actually seeing it, and by combining the two 
elements of rapidity and lengih of time in passing over it. The 
imagination may conceive of great extent in an hour, or even in a 
minute : but imagiaation cannot hold on day after day ; and all her 
impressions upon the brain do not leave traces so vivid, deep, and 
strong as come from actual observation, and from being made to 
comprehend by seeing and feeling, suffering and enjoying. 

April 11. Spent the evening of Thursday at the house of Mr. 
Nathan Gluilford. He is the author of the school system of Ohio. 
He prepared the bill and carried it through the State Senate in 
1825. What great results have followed from this measure ! Here 
is an encouragement. Cannot I work in a faith that needs only to 
look as far forward as fifteen years ? 

April 20. ... On Monday we went to the " North Bend " to 
see Gen. Harrison, as probable a candidate for the next Presidency 



128 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

as any man in the country. He had been ill, — pale, thin, his skin 
shrivelled, and his motions weak. He entered into conversation, 
however, and seemed to gain strength and vivacity as he proceeded. 
His conversation was sensible, without being learned or profound. 
His manners had the utmost simplicity. In the course of the visit, 
he spoke of the events in which he had borne a conspicuous part, with- 
out the sHghtest elation ; and referred to his own frugal and homely 
life, without a hint that his poverty was a thing either to be proud of 
or ashamed of. His dwelUng is humble. It is surrounded by a 
large enclosure, aU of which is a lawn, except that behind the house, 
which is a garden. The whole is enclosed by what is called in 
New England a " Vii-ginia fence." We entered this enclosure by 
a gate large enough for carts or carriages. There was no small 
gate or turn-stUe by the side of the piincipal one, as usual ; it hav 
ing been wisely infeiTcd that whatever could enter through a small 
gate might enter through a large one. The gate was secured by a 
wooden latch and button ; and the only process necessary in order 
to open it was to put the arm between its different rails, move the 
button, raise the latch, press against the gate, and the feat was fully 
accomplished. I doubt much if Windsor Pai'k has any such gate 
in all its avenues. The path leading from the gate aforesaid to the 
door was such as had been formed in the natural course of events 
by the wheels of vehicles, and the indiscriminate feet of bipeds and 
quadrupeds. Of walks gravelled below and arbored above we saw 
none. The greensward had not been disturbed to make way for 
flowers. The water had not been gathered into fountains, but 
sought its way, irrespective oi jets d'eau, wherever the laws of 
gravitation inclined it. The statues had not yet left the quany. 
The doorsteps were such laminae of unhewn and undressed stone as 
Nature had provided. AU that art had done was to put them in 
the right place. 

The house was a building with two wings. Part of the central 
building was veritable logs, though now covered externally by clap- 
boards, and within by wainscoting. This covering and these wings 
have been added since the log nucleus was rolled together. The fur- 
niture of the parlor could not have drawn very largely upon any one's 
resources. The walls were ornamented with a few portraits, some 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 129 

in frames, some disembodied from a frame. The drawing-room 
was fitted up more in modern style ; but the whole of the furniture 
and ornaments in three rooms might have cost two hundred or 
one hundred and fifty dollars. 

I think that half the farmers and mechanics in Norfolk County, 
Mass., have a room quite as well furnished as the best room of 
Gen. William H. Harrison, the leading Whig candidate for the 
Presidency of the United States. The billiard-room of a certain 
gentleman in Boston would buy the general out of house and home. 

But how, Mr. Traveller and Taker-of-notes, did all this act upon 
your contemplations'? These were my lucubrations thereupon. 
From that homely gateway never went forth any armed band to do 
injustice. No blood of human victims was upon the portals of the 
door. If there were no flowers along the path, no tears had been 
transmuted into hue and odor by the taskmaster ; and rather would I 
go out and in amid that rude carpentry, and sleep beneath a thatched 
roof on a bed of straw, with obtruding winds and storms for my 
lullaby, than dwell in princely palaces, in the midst of gardens like 
that of Eden, when the wealth that created the enchantments 
around me had been plundered in war, or wrung by oppression 
from toiling vassals. 

The conversation and phrenological appearance of Gren. Harrison 
indicated a man of clear intellect, without any great strength. His 
superiority undoubtedly comes from the absence of disturbing forces, 
rather than from original enei'gy. He said, that, when Mr. Webster 
came to see him a few years ago, he prepared such entertainment 
for him as his house afforded, but had no wine ; and added, that he 
had had none in his house for, I think, twenty years. He told his 
guests on that occasion that he should be glad to give them some, as 
they were probably accustomed to it ; but that, if he had bought any, 
he probably should not be able to pay for it. After Mr. Webster 
went away, he inquired of his fellow-guests if it were really true 
that the general did not keep wine ; and remarked, that he thought 
he should have it, whether he could pay for it or not. 

We were shown an eagle, which had been caught a few months 
since, and presented to the general at a public meeting. At the 
battle of Fort Meigs, an eagle was seen hovermg over the armies in 



130 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

the midst of the engagement ; and the orator, with a poet's license, 
had taken the liberty to presume that the eagle, which was then 
regarded as an omen of martial victory over the foreign enemies of 
the country, was the same which was now caught, and was to be the 
omen of a civil victoiy over its domestic foes ; that is, in plain 
prose, of a triumph of the Wliigs over the Van Buren party. When 
Mr. J. C. Vaughan, who accompanied us, said that he must keep 
the eagle, according to the trust, until that poUtical victory could 
be achieved, — "Ah!" said the general very promptly, "there 
is another condition to that. If Mr. Van Buren will repent of his 
iniquities, then he may remain where he is, and I will remain where 
I am." 

He has no predominant self-esteem, or love of approbation. Those 
organs are small. Combativeness is also small. Alimentiveness and 
acquisitiveness are almost wanting. The moral region is tolerably 
developed ; but this absence of the great miscliief-working propensi- 
ties gives it fau" play. This is the key to his character and his- 
tory. . . . 

I have never enjoyed and at the same time profited so much by 
the society of any individual with whom I have met as by that of 
Mr. Combe ; so that, as a traveller, I can hardly have a greater 
misfortune than to miss him. I hope they will return from Cin- 
cinnati, therefore, that we may go up the river together. 

This country has been created on a splendid scale of physical 
magnificence. Are its intellectual and moral proportions to be of 
a corresponding greatness ? We trust in God they are ; for, if such 
an energy of physical nature predominates, it will lead to extremes 
of licentiousness, of bnital indulgence of all kinds, such as the 
world has never yet exhibited. 

April 24. No IMr. Combe. My desire to see him is so great, 
that I defer my departure till to-moiTOw. If he does not come by 
that time, I must bid adieu to the expectation of ever seeing him 
agam. This will be most painful. . . . 

Boston, May 9, 1840. 

My deae Mr. and Mrs. Combe, — I am suffering under a malady 
for which there is no prescription in the phaimacopceia, nor any 
skUl in the professors of the healing art. It is an intellectual and 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 131 

moral atrophy. After being high fed for five or sis weeks, I am 
suddenly put upon the teetotal system. How I long for the nodes 
et dies deorum again ! For a renewal of this wise pleasure, or 
pleasant wisdom, I would sleep with a steam-boiler breathing in my 
face, or "he over" m that odd caravansary where Jonah took 
lodgings for three days and nights ; or, if nothing else would pro- 
cure it, I would again enter a canal-boat. I am reminded of what 
Lord Byron said, — that hearing Mrs. Siddons had disqualified him 
from enjo3dng the theatre forever. We came from Stonington to 
Providence, and from Providence to Boston, ninety miles, in 
three hours and fifty minutes. Had the cars bolted from the 
track, or butted upon it, no righteousness would have saved us. . . . 

Territorially, how insignificant Massachusetts appears to me ! It 
is not large enough for a door-yard for the West. Rhode Island 
always seemed to me very minute, compared with Massachusetts; 
and I remember that one of my brother-collegians at Providence, 
who was ofifended at something there, once threatened to shovel it 
into the ocean ! but, as compared with that trans- AUeghanic world 
(of which there is enough to make a planet), there is not much 
difierence between the two. But, as you say, every thing is by com- 
parison; or, more classically, " smallness is as peoples thinks." . . . 
I found all things had subsided into accustomed quiet or torpor in 
relation to the Board of Education. The universal forces of society 
are all concentrated upon a revival in religion, or a change in the 
administration. Distant and foreign events are said to have charms 
for our people. If so, the cause of education should begin to have 
attractions for them ; for I hardly know of any thing more distant or 
foreign to them than that. . . . 

Well, my dear friends, I must bid you farewell. Had I control 
over the laws of Nature, I should fill not only the month of June, 
but all the rest of your days, with special providences in your behalf. 
Farewell again; and whatever words are the strongest to express my 
esteem and affection, consider me as saying them. 

HORACE MANN. 

May 10. I arrived in Boston a week since, after a journey of 
three thousand miles. In Philadelphia I parted with Mr. Combe, 



^ 



132 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

who seems to me to understand, far better than any other man I 
ever saw, the principles on which the human race has been formed, 
and by following which their most sure and rapid advancement 
would be secured. I have never been acquainted with a mind 
which handled such great subjects with such ease, and, as it appears 
to me, with such justness. He has constantly gratified my strongest 
faculties. The world knows him not. In the next century, I have 
no doubt, he will be looked back upon as the greatest man of the 
present. But he has a mind fitted for this extensive range. I 
have no doubt it would cause him great pain, were he to beUeve 
that his name would never emerge into celebrity : but he has an 
extent of thought by which the next age is now present to him, 
and he sees that his persecuted and contemned views will then be 
triumphant ; and, with that assurance, he can forego contemporary 
applause. Let me, too, labor for something more enduring than 
myself. 

May 23. Another Abstract of school returns to be prepared, 
and, of course, an enonnous amount of labor to be done ; but to 
this I go with good heart, knowing the wonder-working power of 
diligence. 

The Governor said that he had not been satisfied with the course 
of the Board in relation to the library. The act creating them was 
very general. It made it their duty to attend to education in all 
its parts. He did not know but that the act would authorize 
them to take measures for the military education of the people. The 
form of approval adopted by the Board seemed to cany us back a 
century or two. It approximates to a Ucense. If it were a new 
question, he should be opposed. It looks like the old black-letter 
licenses. He could not sanction it without compromising his own 
rights. He professed not to wish to injure those who had embarked 
in it ; was wilhng it should continue, if it could be done without 
the names ; was very much in favor of libraries. 

The second day, Mr. Hudson called him out by saying that it 
seemed useless to discuss questions about altering the form of the 
sanction of the Board, until it was known how far the objections of 
any member went, whether to the present form only, or to the whole 
plan. To this the Grovernor rephed, that he doubted the right and 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 133 

the propriety of the Board giving any recommendation to books ; 
and he read part of a letter which he had prepared to send to the 
publishers, which was as follows : " I must decline to give my official 
sanction to any book which has been or may be presented to the 
Board"! 

After this, a modification became indispensable. Thus has the 
most excellent plan of the Board, in relation to this most important 
subject, been defeated. 

Webntham, June 11, 1840. 

My deak Friend, — I received your former letter while I was 
putting up lightning-conductors to draw off" the electricity from that 
cloud that had been raised against the Board. For a few days, I 
assure you there was not much leisure ; and finally, as you know, 
the moral paragreles drew off" the elements of fanaticism and mam- 
mon with which it was bursting. ... I should be glad if I could 
make you see that this cause is wholly a practical one, and that all 
advancement in it is to be accomplished by human means, and not 
by transcendentalism ; but it is hard, after all, to correct any one's 
mistakes, when those mistakes come from having higher, purer, 
more disinterested feelings than belong to the rest of mankind. 

I was much interested in the story you told me of the young 
lady at the Normal school. I rejoice that the motive to do right 
prevailed ; though I think it was the absence of intellectual light 
that gave such an aspect to the subject. The higher sentiments 
run into mistakes almost as easily as the propensities. Intellect 
and knowledge are equally necessary for the guidance of both. 
You have adverted to another subject, on which, perhaps, I ought 
to say a word. You left it at my discretion to do as I thought best 
about presenting your note to the Board. I exercised that discre- 
tion, but said nothing to you at the time, because I felt it would be 
impossible to make you see all the inherent difficulties with which 
the subject was sun-ounded. I strained my head and heart for 
three months last spring, and almost brought on insanity or idiocy, 
to obviate the difficulties, to allay the prejudices, to harmonize the 
oppositions, which encompassed that enterprise. I had the assistance 
of no mortal in it all. Nay, some, who ought to have aided me, 



134 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

almost openly blamed me that I did not at once make a perfect man, 
as God made Adam, and set him over the school, without any 
salary. 

But the Normal School has " got to going," and will go at 
some time, though this attempt should fail : but it never would go 
without more or less of these obstacles ; and I feel glad, therefore, 
that the pioneering has been done. ... If you have leisure, a 
good use you can make of part of it would be in writing to me. 
I have much that I would say to you, had I time ; but a printing- 
press is roaring behind me, and I must say good-by. 

Affectionately as ever, 

H. M. 

Aug. 9. I have only to record that yesterday I had the last 
proof of the Abstract. That great work, therefore, with the excep- 
tion of the Index, Report, &c. , is done ; a labor in which I have 
almost died within the last ten weeks. I now resolve never to 
undertake to do so much work in so short a time again. It is a 
violation of the natural and organic laws : these are wisely framed, 
and it is unwise to disregard them. 

This kind of resolve was, perhaps, the only kind that 
Mr. Mann never kept. He always did the work that 
presented itself, let it cost him what it might ; and was 
often so prostrated by his exertions, — which were always 
ardently made, and with his whole soul, — that his 
friends feared he would wholly disable himself. I pro- 
ceed with extracts from his journal, that the world may 
know that his office was no sinecure. He continued to 
lecture several times a week from this date. 

Aug. 29. Lectured extempore at Holmes Hole, owing to the 
peculiarities of the place ; then at Nantucket, at New Bedford, at 
the convention. An extempore lecture at Westport to a small au- 
dience. A hundred citizens went from New Bedford to Westport 
to hear a pohtical address a few evenings ago, which is exceed- 
ingly flattering to my self-esteem, and love of approbation. But I 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 135 

must take my pay, not out of those organs, but out of conscientious- 
ness and benevolence : these are long-lived powers, and shall stand 
when the day of the others is passed away forever. This county 
is one of the dark spots of the earth. I would pray most heartily 
for the success of the convention to-morrow, but am satisfied that 
success, if it comes at all, must come from works, not prayers. 
Pohtics have absorbed every thing else here. The idea of effect- 
ing political reforms by reforming the sources whence all evils pro- 
ceed seems not to have entered the minds of this people. 

Sept. 10. Tuesday, the convention at Bridgewater ; which, 
considering all circumstances, was pretty fair. Wednesday, we 
launched the Bridgewater Normal School. How much depends 
upon its success ! Last evenuag, I returned to give the last touch 
to the Abstract. A better work on the subject never has appeared, 
as I believe, in any language. It cannot but do immense good ; 
and half a century hence, I predict, it will be looked upon as 
one of the most interesting documents of the age. Now it will 
excite no notice except in a few minds ; unless, indeed, some bad 
persons may seize upon it as a means of mischief.* 

Sept. 15. Wellfleet: a miserable, contemptible, deplorable con- 
vention. This morning, on arriving, I found that not the slightest 
thing had been done by way of arrangement ; absolutely nothing. 
To-morrow I will shake the dust from off my feet in regard to this 
place. Thus far I have found things in a deplorable condition in 
this county. How will it be ten years hence ? Such a state of 
things was not to be anticipated anywhere in Massachusetts. 
But I see every day how much is to be done. On Wednesday, 
the 16th, I came, tlu-ough Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster, to 
Dennis. Visited several schools and schoolhouses, and found both 
schools and schoolhouses very miserable. Lectured in the even- 
ing; making four successive evenings of lecturing. Thursday, 
went to South Dennis to see if any interest could be found or 
inspired there. . . . Visited a school where the intellectual exer- 
cises were wretched in the extreme : returned, and visited another 



* This Abstract was compiled from the written reports of every school com- 
mittee in the State. 



136 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

in tlie afternoon with but little more satisfaction. At evening 

came to Yarmouth : called on Mr. , with whom I did not 

feel very good-natured, on account of his want of interest in 
the schools. Thus ends the Cape tour, with all the good in pros- 
pect. 

Sept. 30. Had a meagre convention last week at Baire. Poh- 
ties are the idol which the people have gone after, and the true 
gods must go without worship. The President of the County- 
Association, and of the American Institute of Instruction, saw 
fit to stay away. When those who heretofore have professed the 
greatest interest in the cause, and who seem bound to support 
it by then official relations, fall off, I must do so much the more, — 
both their part and my own. 

Yesterday I closed up affairs for Fvanklin County by a conven- 
tion most miserable in point of numbers ; almost aU of the princi- 
pal men of the village going out of it to attend a political con- 
vention at Deei-field. Surely, if I were not proof against slights, 
neglects, and mortifications, I should abandon this cause in de- 
spair. But it is this indifference which makes perseverance a 
virtue. Did I meet with universal encouragement and sympathy, 
the work would be so dehghtful as to repay exertions as fast as 
they were made. It is these neglects that put me to the proof; 
and I will stand that proof. Yet who could have believed before- 
hand that such men as , , , , &c., would 

have left the Common-school Convention in their own town to 
go abroad to a political one ? 

Oct. 1. Pittsfield. Visited a school in Lanesborough ; then 
came here, and visited two more. To-morrow is the day of the con- 
vention, when I am to appear before somebody perhaps, but proba- 
bly very few. All causes prosper more than the greatest of all ; 
and everybody is more ready to hear of subordinate and temporary 
interests than of primary and permanent ones. If it is not my 
mission to change this state of things, it is to commence a change 
of proceedings which will one day result in a change. 

Oct. 2. The day of shame is over. At ten o'clock, the time ap- 
pointed for the convention, not an individual had come into the 
place. At half-past eleven, eight or ten made their appearance 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 137 

from other towns, wlio, with about a dozen on the spot, constitut- 
ed the convention. This afternoon, I lectured to about a dozen 
women and some hundred men ; and, immediately after I got 
through, the company dispersed like a flock of birds that have been 
shot into. To-morrow I shall shake the mud (it will probably be 
rainy) from off my feet, and leave this place, — so dark, that it 
puts light out before it reaches it. For Westfield to-morrow, where 
I have some hopes of a better time. 

Oct 1, 1840. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — ... You ask me to express my opinion 
about your "Moral Philosophy." I have no hesitation in saying 
it is worthy of you. That it should be equal to the " Constitution 
of Man " was impossible. There can be but one discovery of the 
circulation of the blood, or of the solar system, or of the identity of 
electricity and hghtning ; and so there can be but one author of the 
" Constitution of Man." He or othei'S may apply its principles to 
facts, and to new combinations of facts ; but the great discoverer 
must stand unequalled by himself or by others. Your applications 
of the subject to criminal legislation, jurisprudence, &c., will 
in time, I have no doubt, work revolutions in those departments, 
but not until the general mind has become imbued and saturated 
with the true philosophy. 

The poUtical excitement of this country is increasing in intensity 
beyond all former parallel. The air has become a non-conductor to 
all sounds except such as come from the politician's mouth, and the 
light ceases to be reflected except to the pohtician's eye ; or rather, 
without aceusmg Nature of any departure from her estabhshed 
usages, there seems to be neither ear nor eye for any thing but 
pohtics. People are running to and fro ; but I fear the great mis- 
fortune is that hiowledge does not increase. I endeavored, with the 
use of all my previous knowledge, to appoint my school conventions so 
that I might pass between the drops ; but, behold ! the pohtical con- 
ventions come, not in drops, but in a sheet which it is impossible to 
escape. All seems to indicate that Glen. Harrison will be our next 
President. . . . The consequence of so fierce a contest between the 
parties is, that they are ready to sacrifice any thing to gain a vote : 



138 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

they seem not to look beyond the next election ; that is, to them, the 
day of judgment. For the sake of getting the Catholic votes in 
New York, the Grovernor of that State has suggested that the Catholic 
sect should have their proportion of the school-monoy distributed by 
the State, to expend under their own direction, and, of course, for 
the propagation, not of secular knowledge (so to call it), but 
of religious instniction ; and the Secretary of State, who in New 
York is, ex officio, superintendent of the conunon schools, is advo- 
cating the same cause. 

You asked me to make suggestions in relation to subjects proper 
to be treated in your Journal. I know of nothing by which you 
will be likely to do more good, both here and at home, than by 
explaining at full length, so as to make it intelligible to all Ameri- 
cans, what obstacles the cause of general education has encountered, 
and is encountering, in Great Britain, especially in England, through 
the bigotry of the religionists (lucus a nan lucendo) in resisting all 
measures which do not emanate from, or cannot be controlled by, 
them ; in showing how the spirit of our laws forbids this sectarian 
interference; and commenting in proper terms upon the efforts 
of fanatics to infuse their peculiar dogmas into the great subject of 
education, and the iniquity of politicians who favor their schemes 
for political effect. . . . 

Farewell, dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe ! If my prayers had any 
efficacy, the only bounds to your prosperity and happiness would be 
your power to possess and enjoy them. 

Ever and affectionately yours, 

HORACE MANN. 



At this period, Mr. Mann's phraseology concerning men- 
tal operations underwent a striking change, due to his 
interest in the phrenological science and philosophy. It 
somewhat mars the gracefulness of his speech ; but there 
was a peculiar pleasure to him in giving a definite ex- 
pression to his ideas upon a subject which he felt to be 
satisfactorily cleared up by that mental nomenclature. 
Some of his friends used to tease him a little for having 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 139 

adopted this mode of expression from his excellent friend 
Mr. Combe ; but he would reply, that he had been so 
long bothered by metaphysicians and their systems, that 
he enjoyed speaking wide of them all. He did not come 
to ail Mr. Combe's conclusions, nor was he bound by his 
limitations ; but he enjoyed that philosophy which recog- 
nized the adaptation of every faculty to its appropriate 
object. It simplified to him the whole theory of mental 
phenomena. 

Boston, Nov. 8, 1840. 

Gr. Combe, Esq., Slateford, Scotland. My very dear Friend, — 
... I come to a point which I never thought would arise in my 
intercourse with you. From my earliest acquaintance with you, 
our relations have been established upon the basis of friendship. I 
have felt, and still feel, all, and more than all that I have expressed ; 
and now the occasion which tests sincere friendship, the real casus 
foederis, as the diplomatists call it, has come. Both Dr. H. and 
myself are disappointed in your Journal. How much of it comes 
from our expectations being unduly raised, we are unable to say ; 
but, on a careful review of the grounds of our opinion, we cannot 
change it. That yours is superior to the common class of journals, 
we might admit : but mere superiority is not what will be expected 
of you ; nay, demanded ; nay, what you will be punished by 
public opinion for not prodvicing. The author of the " Constitution 
of Man" cannot wiite commonplaces and truisms, and give a de- 
scription of the mere outside of society, with impunity. Pubhc 
expectation is a hard taskmaster, and will punish him for omission 
as well as for commission. We ventured to surmise that you must 
have kept a note-book of your goings from place to place, and of 
daily events, and which you have, to a great extent, copied. The 
consequence is, that careless memoranda, made from day to day 
when the mind was absorbed in other things, came forth as the prod- 
uct of the greatest reasoning faculties, and impressions early 
received are left uncorrected by a greater extent of observation and 
more just deductions fi-om it. . . . This leads also not only to the 



140 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

juxtaposition of the most heterogeneous tilings, but makes the 
transition from one to the other bewilderingly rapid. Where entries 
are so strikingly foreign to each other, each one must have some 
recommendation of its own. It is like a jest-book, where each wit- 
ticism or epigi-am must commend itself, and seems only the worse 
for having a good one above and below it. Had you thrown all 
that relates to your course of phrenological lectures in Boston under 
one head, and all the public institutions, the manners of the people, 
&c., under different heads, there would have been not only a 
continuity of subject, but you could not now, in your leisure and 
retirement, bring all the facts under your causality and comparison 
at once, without valuable philosophizing or moralizing. But taking 
up these things in detail and by fragments excludes the very things 
in which your strength lies ; and, like Samson, you are shorn of 
your locks. A volatile, pert, flippant traveller will describe every- 
day trivialities better than you ; but when the machinery of the 
universe gets out of order, then comes the dignus vindice modus. 
Now, where social institutions ai-e not wisely established, or where 
the manners and customs, and the tone of feeling that pervades 
society, among a people whose law is public opinion, are wrong, 
then the machinery is out of order, and those who can both perceive 
how it is, and how it should be, are commissioned to set it right. 
But I will not dwell on this topic. I am sure you will pardon what 
I have stated, even if wrong, because of the motive from which it 
comes. A regard for yourself, and for the great good which your 
other works can do, if not obscui-ed by this, has prompted what I 
have said.* 

Gen. Harrison, as you will learn by this conveyance, if not before, 
is to be our next President. Our State Legislature is entu'ely 
different from the last. The author of the movement against the 
Board was dropped by conunon consent, as the reward of his 
malevolence. . . . 

Give my best regards to Mrs. Combe. Oh! you cannot tell 
how much I wish to see and hear you again. Command my ser- 
vices to any extent; and believe me most truly and faithfully 
yours, HORACE MANN. 

* See Mr. Combe's reply in Appendix. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 141 

Dec. 20. Have been engaged mainly this week with a long ar- 
ticle for the first number of the thuxl volume of the " Common-school 
Journal." It contains some truths which it is desirable to send 
abroad; but whether they will prove to be in an unexceptionable 
form, is the question. I shall submit them to their fate, beUeving 
them to be true, and to contain no just ground of offence. 

In this introduction, Mr. Mann shows how forcibly his 
mind had been led, by the " wild roar of party politics " 
of that year, to look into the secret springs of public ac- 
tion; and how futile is the attempt to "define truth by 
law, and to perpetuate it by power and wealth, instead of 
knowledge." He closes it in these words, which apply 
equally to our own times : — 

To the patriot, then, who desires the well-being of his nation ; 
to the philanthropist, who labors for the happiness of his race ; 
to the Christian, who includes both worlds in his comprehensive 
survey, — is not the path of duty clear and radiant ? Is it not the 
duty of the wise and good of all parties to forget theu' personal ani- 
mosities and contentions ; to strike the banners of party ; to unfurl 
a flag of truce ; to come together, and unite in rearing new institu- 
tions, or in giving new efficiency to old ones, for the diffusion of 
useful knowledge, for the creation of intellectual ability, for the cul- 
tivation of the spirit of concord ] for giving to those who are to come 
after us better means of discovering truth, higher powers of advocat- 
ing it, stronger resolutions of obedience to it, than we have ever 
enjoyed, possessed, or felt ? For clamor and convulsion and per- 
secution, for the "wind" and the "earthquake" and the "fire," 
in which the spirit of Grod does not dwell, may not the past suffice ? 
and for the future, can we not listen to the " still small voice " of 
reason and conscience ? 

. . . By a rational and conscientious use of the means put into 
our hands, an era may be ushered in, when the appearance of such 
a spirit as animated a Howard, a Washington, and a Wilberforce, 
will no longer be deemed a prodigy, and to be accounted for only on 
supernatural principles. 



142 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

If there must be institutions, associations, combinations, amongst 
men, wbose tendency is to alienation and discord, to whet the an- 
gry feelings of individuals against each other, to transmit the con- 
tentions of the old to the young, and to make the enmities of the 
dead survive to the living, — if these things must continue to be 
in a land calhng itself Christian, let there be one institution, at 
least, which shall be sacred from the ravages of the spirit of party, 
one spot in the wide land unblasted by the fiery breath of animos- 
ity. . . . Let there be one rallying-point for a peaceful and har- 
monious co-operation and fellowship, where all the good may join in 
the most beneficent of labors. The young do not come into life 
barbed and fanged against each other. . . . 

The common school is the institution which can receive and train 
up children in the elements of all good knowledge and of virtue 
before they are subjected to the alienating competitions of life. This 
, institution is the greatest discovery ever made by man : we repeat 
^ it, the common school is the greatest discovery ever made hy man. 
In two grand, characteristic attributes, it is supereminent over all 
others : first, in its universality, for it is capacious enough to receive 
and cherish in its parental bosom every child that comes into the 
world ; and, second, in the timeliness of the aid it proflfers, — its 
early, seasonable supplies of counsel and guidance making security 
antedate danger. Other social organizations are curative and reme- 
dial : this is a preventive and an antidote. They come to heal dis- 
eases and wounds ; this, to make the physical and moral frame in- 
vulnerable to them. Let the common school be expanded to its 
capabiUties, let it be worked with the efiiciency of which it is sus- 
ceptible, and nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal code would be- 
come obsolete ; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged ; 
men would walk more safely by day ; every pillow would be 
more inviolable by night; property, life, and character held by a 
stronger tenure; all rational hopes respecting the future bright- 
ened. 

Do not these words apply as well to the changed cir- 
cumstances of our country, when a new field is so sud- 
denly and wonderfully opened for the benign influences 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 143 

of education, and when the subjects of its beneficence 
spring forward to meet its benefits with such intensity of 
aspiration, — an aspiration that, it is true, sees only vague- 
ly all the good that is to come from it, but with a faith 
that will " remove mountains ; " when the North seems 
to be resolving itself, directly and indirectly, into one 
great Educational Commission, to make up by enthusi- 
asm, and efficiency of labor, the work of a century in our 
country's annals ? 

After the establishment of the Board of Education in 
Massachusetts, Mr. Mann was the constant recipient of 
letters from philanthropic and enlightened individuals 
of the South, inquiring of him what could be done to 
extend the blessings of common-school education to that 
benighted region, where a few aristocrats monopolized all 
the advantages wealth and culture could give, leaving 
wide-spread regions, inhabited by their own Anglo-Saxon 
race, a prey to the night and misery of ignorance ; but 
neither he nor they, when they reasoned upon it, could 
see any light to their path in that latitude. But the 
day-spring has come ; and, by one of those astounding 
retorts of Nature before which the machinations of man 
sometimes stand aghast, an oppressed and down-trodden 
race, whose aspirations for knowledge have hitherto been 
suppressed by legal enactments, bids fair to rise in its 
might, and be the superiors and instructors of the en- 
slaved white men of the South, — no less enslaved, because 
indirectly so, than themselves. Before they have well 
shaken off the gyves that bound them, the negroes rush to 
the fountains of knowledge to slake that undying thirst 
which the Creator has planted in every soul, and which 
they appreciate as yet only because it has been forcibly 
withheld from them. Can the youth of a generation have 
a nobler work before them, or indeed a more sfrateful 



144 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

task, than to answer with all their stores of culture to 
such a noble aspiration ? Party politics, which are al- 
ways subversive of the best interests of society, will in 
future have little basis left in our land, when all its inter- 
ests are for advancement and freedom ; and we may 
now reasonably look forward to the day when the best 
men will not feel themselves degraded by entering into the 
political arena, no longer the arena of slavery and igno- 
rance against liberty and light, but that of generous emu- 
lation to discover the best modes of ameliorating human 
life. One necessary condition of perfection is imperfec- 
tion ; and there will be enough for man to do to emulate 
the creative spirit of God after the equal rights of all 
men before universal law are secured, as the first step- 
ping-stone in the ascent from the babe to the archangel. 

A fire has long been smouldering in the souls of good 
men, which is now consuming the stubble of selfishness 
and the monopoly of God-given rights. It raged fiercely 
within that of Mr. Mann, and kindled hope and faith in 
him that the earth would before long quake and swallow 
the oppressor, or purify him as fire only can. " Oh that I 
could live a hundred years ! " was his oft-repeated ex- 
clamation. He wished to see the breaking of the great 
seals with his own eyes, and to help in the breaking. 

Boston, Jan. 1, 1841. 

I wish you, my dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Combe, a happy 
New Year; yea, many of them, and very happy. I received, by the 
"Acadia," your welcome letter of Dec. 1, and the accompanying 
packages. The one addressed to Mr. Hart was foi-warded as soon as 
it could be obtained from the hands of Uncle Sam, who, consider- 
ing the amount of his business and the number of his acquaint- 
ances, is certainly the greatest uncle I ever had. 

Oh ! how many tunes I have asked myself, What will the philos- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 145 

opher say when he reads the letter of Dr. H. and myself on 
his first volume? Will he not exclaim, not merely "Et tu, 
Brute! " but "Et vos Bruti! " the first exclamation being usually 
translated, you know, "Oh, you brute ! ' ' But, if yoti have the power 
of Csssar, you also have his clemency. If it is the seal of friend- 
ship to speak out all one's thoughts of a friend to himself, did avc 
not stamp the imj)ression inelFaceably deep? I have read the 
second volume, and it is much superior to the first. You have 
emerged from the gastric and sensuous region of the common tourist, 
and the great light of Causality begins to shine. This volume has 
merits enough to be self-subsistent, though I can hardly say that it 
will also be able to sustain the first. If the third rises above the 
second, as the second does above the first, all nations will cry out, 
"Lord, give us a fourth, and take the first away ! " I have marked 
some errors, but they are mostly trivial ; though it is well to be 
perfect where we can. Massachusetts has not had a State lottery, 
I think, for twenty years. In our revised statutes, you will see how 
throughly we try to smoke the vermin out. They are forever 
prohibited by the New -York Cotistitution. . . . And now I am 
doubly glad that I have closed the list of exceptions, — glad because 
they are done, and glad because I have done them honestly and 
faithfully, as I trust you would do to me, if I were the philoso- 
pher, and you a humble disciple. I will only add, that, a few 
days ago, Dr. Channing spoke very cordially of you to Dr. Howe 
and myself, and referred with interest to the forthcoming books ; 
saying, very decidedly, that he hoped they would not come 
in the form of a journal, for that you had great power to treat 
of this country in a philosophical way, but that he lacked con- 
fidence in your journalizing skill ; and he earnestly entreated Dr. 
Howe and myself to dissuade you from adopting that form of pre- 
senting yourself to the pubhc. We concurred with him, to some 
extent, in his general views, but kept mum as a deaf mute on 
the subject of our special enlightenment. A rumor is in circu- 
lation that you are preparuig a book, and a late evening paper an- 
nounced that it was now in the Philadelphia press. Whence it 
came we do not know ; for we have been secretive as death. 

I do not think you liave any thing to fear from the general man- 

10 



146 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

ner in which you have spoken of this country thus far. If your 
conscience is satisfied, our people ought to be. I have often been 
asked what opinion you formed of the United States. I have 
replied, with an idea which I think you can expand, that of our 
possibilities you think every thing; of our actualities, not very much. 
And it seems to me this is the true view of the subject. An 
expansion of the ideas contained in your last lecture iu regard to 
this country would make a glorious chapter. 

I cannot say that I think our Presidential contests tend to unite 
this wide-spread people by any useful bond of sympathy or practi- 
cal improvement. In the last few years, our contests have resem- 
bled those at Rome between the partisans of Marius, Sylla, Cinna, 
&c. ; only that our soldiers use votes instead of arms. 

In regard to education, I want you to look as much as your 
time will allow into the Abstract which I sent you, especially at 
the Reports of Roxbury, Charlestown, Harvard, Brookfield, Graf- 
ton, and Northfield. Allow me also to remind you of what I have 
said, in my Second and Third Reports, as to the dependence of 
the prosperity of the schools on the public intelligence ; that the 
people will sustain no better schools, and have no better education, 
than they personally see the need of ; and therefore that the people 
are to be infoiTaed and elevated, as a preliminary step towards ele- 
vating the schools. x\nd then, further, you will look at the maehin- 
eiy by which it is done. The Secretary, by travelling round the 
State, by con-espondeuee and interviews, obtains all the knowledge 
he can respecting existing defects and practicable improvements. 
He communicates tliis information to the Board : from them it goes 
to the Legislature, by whom it is printed, and sent into every 
school district of the State. Then the committee of each town is 
obliged to make a Report to the town, a copy of which comes back 
into the hands of the Board ; and from these Reports the Annual 
Abstract is made. See also two Reports prefixed to the Abstracts 
of 1838-9 and of 1839-40. This is the machinery; and such a 
forcing-pump was never invented before : it only wants to be used 
vigorously, and it will inject blood into every vein and artery of the 
body politic. A long article on the subject appears in the " North- 
American Review " to-day. If possible, I shall get a copy to send 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 147 

to you to-morrow by the "Acadia;" if not, you can find one in 
Edinbui'gh. It was written by our friend and your most earnest 
disciple, Greorge B. Emerson. 

I have read Guizot. It is a great book. 

Mr. Pierpont's case is still in fieri. He has piiblished another 
letter, every word of which is a porcupine's quill. . . . 

Farewell, and blessings attend you both. 

HOEACE MANN. 



Jan. 17. The Board of Education has met. I have read a 
very long Keport, which, like all my others, has not been well re- 
ceived. I must suppose they are better judges than I am, and 
that the Reports have no merit. Some people, I find, are disposed 
to give them some credit. I hope they will do good, and that will 
supersede all other considerations. In two days, they will probably 
be sent to the Legislature. That makes them public property, to 
be treated as poUtical men may desire. 

Feh. 7. Still troubled by a strong congestion of blood in the 
head, which has now oppressed the brain and sense for several 
weeks, owing to too severe mental labor. I must obey the 
natural laws. The power which I resist in disregarding them is 
more than a match for me. Not one particle of punishment is 
foregone ; and the only way, therefore, to avoid, is not to incur. 

Feb. 21. A minority of the Committee on Education, in the 
House, have reported a bill to transfer the powers and duties of 
the Board of Education to the Governor and Council ; and of the 
Secretary, to the Secretary of State. Thus another blow is aimed 
at our existence, and by men who would prefer that good should 
not be done, rather than that it should be done by men whose views 
on religious subjects differ from their own. The validity of their 
claim to Christianity is in the inverse ratio to the claim itself : 
they claim the whole, but possess nothiug. 

Feh. 28. The bill to transfer the powers of the Board, &c., 
has not yet come up, but probably will to-morrow, when we shall 
see how many have any adequate appreciation of this gi'eat subject, 
and hence how much work is yet to be done : for the work is, to 



148 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

make all adequately appreciate it ; and, until that is accomplished, 
the work is not done. 

Boston, Feb. 28, 1841. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — The third volume of your work is 
decidedly superior to the second ; and you akeady know my opinion 
of that, as compared with the first. Your views on American civil- 
ization are sound and judicious, and written in a spirit of philosophic 
candor, which constitutes one of the great excellences of all your 
writings, and which will give you a greater power over antagonistic 
opinions than any previous philosopher has ever possessed. There 
is but one striking departure from this rule ; and, indeed, it is the 
only important one, so far as I recollect, in all your works. . . . 
The address, also, will make a deep impression upon the public 
mind here. I have always thought it was a most able view of the 
subject ; and it is conceived in a truly dignified and noble spirit, 
and expressed with great clearness and force. . . . There is much 
that is valuable in it, and that which we should all care most about, 
— there is that which will do great good. 

Perhaps I ought, in a formal and esphcit manner, to thank you 
for the mention you have so frequently made of me in the progress 
of the work ; but no selfish and personal regard which I can possibly 
have for you will ever bear any proportion to that general esteem 
and reverence which is founded on the imperishable basis of your 
mind and works. Indeed, I have regretted to find myself the sub- 
ject of such frequent commendation, because it will have the effect 
both to diminish my opportunities to speak of you as you deserve, 
and will inipaii- the authority (if any) or the force of my encomiums 
when given, as people may say that I extol you because I have my- 
self been praised. But this is past. You can yet help my mind, 
as you have hitherto done ; and whenever it is in my power to 
render you a service, remember, I am ready. 

In regard to the Abstract, of which you speak so favorably, 
I entirely agree with those whose judgment is better than my own, 
that there is no such work extant ; nor do I beUeve there is more 
than one other community where men capable of preparing the 
materials of such a work could be found. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 149 

We have no ' ' rural districts, ' ' indepeudent of towns, each one of 
which is a body politic and corporate, with power to elect officers, 
levy taxes, &c. . . . 

It is remarkable, that, at the very time that I am receiving your 
eongratula,tions on the prosperity and security of my plans to improve 
our popular education, my fiiends in the Greneral Court are prepar- 
ing to fight another battle for their existence. D , who was 

among the foremost in the attack last year, has returned to the 
assault again with as much virulence as ever. It so happens that 
retrenchment of expenses is the popular hobby this year ; and both 
parties are running a race for the laurel of economy, and are willing 
to sacrifice all the laurels of the State to win it. The question will 
come on for discussion to-morrow or next day. We all think it 
cannot be carried through the Senate, if, unfortunately, it should 
pass the House. But are not reformers always persecuted ? 

It gives me pain to think, that, in a short time, another sea will 
roll between us ; but there is that in our hearts that neither seas 
nor continents can sever. Please present my kindest regards to 
Mrs. Combe. I wish she could have enjoyed our winter, which has 
been unusually mild and delightful. Ever yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

March 28. . . . My health is rather gaining. How I long for a 
body of power to execute the purposes of the will ! I intend to try 
an absence from the tumult and excitements of the city, and see if 
the lowering of the tone of the brain will not lead to improvement. 
My nervous is evidently predominating over all my other systems; 
losing in strength, but gaining in exeitabihty. Oh, give me health ! 
I have resolution enough of my own. 

April 28. Attended the examination of the Normal School at 
Lexington, which was very satisfactory. The school is doing well, 
— very well. The experiment is succeeding. Whether it will have 
time to commend itself to the favorable opinion of the public, is 
what cannot now be determined. 

It is a remarkable fact, which shows how society is 
divided into strata, that at this time, when the success 



150 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

of the Normal School was one day mentioned to a cul- 
tivated and wealthy Boston lady, she inquired what it 
meant, never having heard of it ! This is mentioned to 
show how little many of the wealthier class of society, 
even in Boston, cared for any reforms or interests out of 
the circle of their visiting-cards ; and makes more credible 
the apathy Mr. Mann found in all places in reference to 
an interest which he felt to be so vital to the Republic as 
thorough common-school education. 

Boston, April 1, 1841. 

GrEORGE CoMBE, EsQ. My dear Mr. Comhe, — ... Since I 
wrote you by the steamer on the 1st of March, your "Notes" 
have been published. What I have heard in private circles is 
commendatory ; and, had they been written by one of less reputation, 
it would have been high praise. But your other works had created 
an expectation which it would require an extraordinary book to 
answer. The public is a hard taskmaster. It will not allow a man 
to fall below himself with impunity. Its demands run with extraor- 
dinary facility from the positive degree to the superlative. The 
exceptions ai'e, however, more to the form than to the substance ; 
the contents of the chapters being so very heterogeneous. There is 
no continuity, no attraction of cohesion : but it is thought to treat 
our institutions with a great degree of candor and fairness ; and the 
two last chapters are regarded as very valuable, and in every respect 
worthy of the author. It is also thought to be a book highly 
appropriate and serviceable to the British public. . . . 

In my last I stated that another attack was made upon the Board 
of Education in our House of Representatives. Its decision was 
postponed till very near the close of the session ; and it came up in 
the afternoon, and before a very thin house, half the members bemg 
absent. Mr. Shaw made a few remarks in defence : when the bigot 
D followed in a speech of an hour's length, the whole intel- 
lectual part of which was made up of misrepresentations ; and the 
whole emotive part, of aspersion. The previous question was then 
moved and sustained ; many of the Whigs voting for it, in order to 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 151 

shorten the session (which has been the Whig hobby this year) : 

and, without one word being said in reply, the proposition was voted 

down, — 131 to 114. Never was any question taken under eireum- 

stanees more disadvantageous to the prevailing party ; and I am 

inclined to think that it will be considered, in flash lano-uage, a 

settler. . . . My kindest regards to Mrs. Combe. If I had any 

influence in the councils above, I would pray most devoutly that 

Grod would bless you both. 

Very truly and affectionately yours, 

H. MANN. 

June 1.3. On Thursday, after my return from a long absence, 
I commenced in good earnest the examination of the Reports of 
the School Committees, in order to make selections from them for 
the Abstract. So far, they are excellent, and will furnish materials 
for another glorious document. I read them with real delight. 
And thus has begun my summer's work, — reading reports, many 
of which are almost illegible ; examining returns, all of which ought 
to balance, but many of which cannot be made to ; and, in the end, 
reading proofs of the whole, — a year's work, to be crowded into 
three months, — a pleasant prospect for hot days ! 

July 29. To-morrow will furnish me with the last proof of the 
Abstract. Thus perseverance is putting its seal of consummation 
on another great work. So let it be. Every one of these will 
raise a wave of feeling in favor of the cause of education, which will 
not subside till the end of time. 

Sept. 14. To-day I have been to Lowell, and have had a very 
pleasant interview with Mr. Clark and Mr. Bartlett, superintend- 
ents of some of the largest establishments in that city, on the sub- 
ject of the superiority of educated as contrasted with uneducated 
people, in the amount and value of their products of labor. My 
object is to show that education has a market value ; that it is so ^ 
far an article of merchandise, that it may be turned to a pecuniary 
account : it may be minted, and will yield a larger amount of statu- 
table coin than common bullion. It has a pecuniary value, a price 
current. Intellectual and moral education are powers not only 
insuring superior respectability and happiness, but yielding returns 



152 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

of silver and gold. This is my idea. Questions founded on these 
views I have put to them ; and they have been answered in a way 
attesting this value of education, beyond my expectations. 

Boston, 1841. 

To Misses R. and E. Pennell (pupils of Normal School) . My 
dear Nieces, — I shall enclose the money for your bills ; and I do 
it most cheerfully, for I trust you will get a great deal more good 
from it than the mere money is worth. Indeed, as money merely, 
it is worth nothing ; but, as a means of improvement, I hope it will 
produce a hundred, or at least sixty fold. 

If you are reading " Brigham on Mental Excitement," you must 
take care of your own excitement. If you get much excited in 
studying how to prevent excitement, you will be as badly off as the 
man who put out his eyes studying optics. I shall never cease to 
give you admonitions about your health, having lost so many yeai-s 
of my own life through the want of a Uttle knowledge and attention, 
which I could so easily have acquired and applied. 

We were all very much pleased with the appearance of the school 
on the day when we visited you. Dr. Howe speaks of it often. 
We think you have the very best instructor,* — one who is worthy 
of all your confidence. 

I do not think you need any impulse to gi-eater diligence or effort. 
What young ladies usually lack most is self-possession, — the power 
of using and commanding their faculties on emergencies, or on 
occasions when inconstant minds will be thrown off their balance. 
Very many persons can do what they would when alone or with 
their fiiends ; but, when exposed to observation, they are discon- 
certed and frustrated, and become ninnies, though it is the exact 
time when they most need calmness and equanimity. How unfor- 
tunate it would be, could you keep ever so good a school, if, as soon 
as the committee or strangers made their appearance, your senses 
should take French leave, throwing you into a cataleptic fit ! This 
misfortune comes from having the organ of cautiousness, or of love 
of approbation, too much excited, so that they absorb the whole forces 

* Rev. Cyrus Pierce, now deceased. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 153 

of the mind, and leave notliing by which the other faculties can be 
worked. But this, bad as it is, is beauty compared with the bold- 
ness which comes from self-esteem. You will find that to keep the 
balance of the faculties is the greatest of all desiderata. It is that 
which makes the perfect man. For the great object of self-posses- 
sion, you ought always to be able to say to yourself, " I have done 
as well as I could. I know my motives are good. I believe that 
the world is so constituted, that good motives, with a moderate en- 
dowment of intellect, will enable their possessor to produce great 
benefits, and always to be worthy the esteem of good men. Where 
motives are right, and the intellect is clear (even though it be not 
very strong) , there is no occasion for any very intense activity of 
cautiousness ; and therefore I will command my powers, and keep 
down too great anxiety." In this way you can learn to stand on 
your feet when there is nothing but the glance of a human eye to 
throw you off your poise. . . . 

Yours very affectionately, 

H. M. 

Boston, Oct. 13, 1841. 

My dear Me. Combe, — Before I attempt to tell you how wel- 
come and dear was your letter of July 16, to which Mrs. Combe 
was so kind as to add a postscript in her own hand, — beautiful gilt 
edging to massive silver plate, — I must first explain my own long 
silence. . . . During the month of September, I was absent from the 
city on my annual circuit ; but I expected to return in season to 
write you by the steamship which sailed on the 1st of this month. 
Before my return, however, an unusual confluence of fatigues, anxie- 
ties, and efforts overpowered all my streng*th ; and in that state some 
villanous tavern-keeper smuggled a little poisonous food into my port 
of entry, which immediately caused infinite mischief throughout the 
internal economy of my kingdom. If I were in a moralizing mood, I 
should say. How strange it is that this paragon of Nature, this lord of 
all below, this being whose thoughts wander up and down through 
eternity, can be extinguished, annihilated, by a slice of bad bread ! 
Now, I hope this account (having no flesh to lose, I was reduced to 
mere cellular tissue) will present me before you rectus in curia : al- 



154 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

though I am not without fear that you.r eausahty will compel you to 
look one step back in the order of events, and find my offence, not in 
the sickness, but in the causes that induced it ; just as the law holds 
an intoxicated man responsible for an act done in the state of intoxi- 
cation, not because he knew better when he committed it, but because 
he knew better when he incuiTcd the hazard of committing it ; he 
being, as my Lord Coke says, voluntarius demon. Well, if so, 
I can only say, I have now suffered the penalty ; and, thus having 
expiated the offence, I ought to be restored to my rights. 

By the way, you know Graham, the author of the teetotal, anti- 
carnivorous system known by his name. He resides at Northamp- 
ton, in this State. Last year he was dangerously ill ; and the first 
labor to which he devoted himself after his recovery was the writing 
of several long articles for a newspaper as an apology for his illness, 
in which he endeavored to vindicate his system from the odium of 
the malady, and himself from the guilt of being principal or acces- 
sory to its perpetration. It occasioned considerable quiet ridicule 
at the time ; but I confess I felt rather disposed to commend the 
course, beUeving it far more rational than the common mode of ap- 
pealing to minister and congregation to offer public thanksgivings 
for a recoveiy from the consequences of misconduct, when not even 
a scant resolution of amendment enters into the public displays of 
gratitude. 

Your account of the social manifestations of the Grerman mind is 
most interesting. Though brief, yet it is an outline sketch from 
one standing on an eminence, and who sees outside and around the 
object he delineates. I availed myself of the liberty you gave to 
show your letter to many persons, to whom it has given great delight. 
At the time I read it, I was reading Miss Sedgewick's "Letters 
from Abroad," and that part of it in which she describes Godesberg, 
your then place of residence. The strong sympathy I have for her, 
and my affection for you, made the coincidence very pleasant. Have 
you seen her letters ? She is indeed a noble woman. Humanity 
exhales from her whole being. Her benevolence, conscientiousness, 
and reverence will not suffer any scene to be left, or any discussion 
to be closed, until they have expressed their reflections upon 
it. . . . 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 155 

I perceive, with unbounded pleasure, that the " Constitution of 
Man" has had a sale wholly unprecedented in the history of scien- 
tific works. As demonstrating a spirit of inquiry on this class of 
subjects, and the adoption of the best means to gratify it, this fact is 
most cheering to those who wait for the coming of the intellectual 
Messiah. ... Its views must be penetrating the whole mass of mind 
as silently and latently indeed as the heat, but as powerfully as 
that for productiveness and renovation. What constitutes a broader 
and deeper channel for the diifusion of these truths is that they are 
reproducing themselves in the minds of liberal clergymen, and hence 
are welling out from the pulpit, and overflowing the more barren 
portions of society. A Unitarian clergyman told me last week that 
he had just preached a sermon drawn from your "Moral Philosophy," 
and had been complimented for it by his parishioners. If once the 
doctrine of the natural laws can get possession of the minds of men, 
then causality will become a mighty ally in the contest for their de- 
liverance from sin as well as from error. As yet, in the history of 
man, causality has been almost a supernumerary faculty : the idea 
of special providences or interventions, the idea that all the events 
of life, whether of individuals or of nations, have been directly pro- 
duced by an arbitrary, capricious, whimsical. Deity, alternating 
between arrogant displays of superiority on the one hand, and a 
doting, fooUsh fondness on the other, has left no scope for the exercise 
of that noble faculty. What a throng of calamities and follies it will 
banish from the world, as soon as it can be brought into exercise ! 

The article on the common-school system of Massachusetts ap- 
peared in the " Edinburgh Review" for July. It was received here 
by all the friends of the good cause with great delight. Conjecture 
has been active in divining its authorship ; but even our friend Dr. 
Howe is at fault. As it bore no resemblance to your ordinary style, 
and was untinctured even with a homoeopathic dilution of phrenolo- 
gy, he thought it could not be yours. Mr. S. has given out that it 
was written by some member of Parliament, who was very anxious 
to become acquainted with our system, and whom he supplied with 
all our documents for that purpose. With others, the title to its 
authorship is ambulatory, migrating from Mr. Stimpson to Lord 
Brougham and yourself. To all, however, and especially to my 



156 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 



friends, it is in the higliest degree gratifying, — I mean, to all whom 
you would like to gratify, — for one of the authors of the report to 
abolish the Board is incensed against it, and asserts that it was 
written here, and sent to Edinburgh to be printed and sent back ; 
but nobody believes hun. 

Howe is doing nobly for the cause. Indeed, I sometimes think 
we should have been wi'ecked before this but for his pilotage. The 
Normal schools are doing well. I have completed another Abstract 
of the Massachusetts school returns. It is even superior to its pre- 
decessors. The statistics show an advance over the preceding year 
in all the elements of prosperity belonging to our school-system. 

Dr. Channing writes me, "I should be glad to see the letter to 
which you refer ; for Mr. Combe is a wise observer, and Dr. Follen 
told me that he had met no foreigner who understood Grermany 
better, or as well. That country is very interesting, and full of 
anomalies. Under despotism, there is much freedom of thought. 
To a plodding industry they join wildness of speculation and ima- 
gination ; and, what is more striking, they are said to be licentious in 
the social relations, and a moral people in other respects. Their 
intellectual influence on Europe is gi'eater than that of any other 
people. I wish Mr. Combe would help us to comprehend them." 

I am exceedingly obhged to Mrs. Combe and yourself for all 
your kind wishes in regard to my health, and that I would join you 
while on the Continent. I should be most happy to do so, could I 
take Massachusetts with me. But it is too large for my pocket, 
though not for my heart. 

I have read your brother's work on Infancy with much delight. 

While perusing it, I saw Death let go his gripe from more than ten 

thousand children. . . . 

Farewell ! Ever sincerely yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Nov. 23. Came from Boston to Walpole yesterday, where I have 
had a meeting which must be called the County Meeting, though 
the smallest and most discouraging I have had in the State. If I 
could allow aught to break down my spirit and hope, it would be 
the manner in which these efforts to arouse public attention seem to 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 157 

fail. Words, counsels, exliortations, seem like substances thrown 
into an abyss. I hear no report giving assurance that somewhere 
there is a bottom upon which they strike. But continue to throw 
in I will. Perhaps it may be my own foitune, at some future clay, 
to hear an echo from the depths. If I do not, some follower of 
mine in the glorious cause will do it ; and at length the chasm shall 
be filled, and not only be filled, but, above, the superstructure shall 
rise as high from the surface as its depths now sink below, and that 
structure shall be the glory of the world. 

Boston, Feb. 28, 1842. 

GrEORGE Combe, Esq. My dear Mr. Combe, — Your kind letter 
of Nov. 15 I did not receive till about the 10th of January. I 
should have said beforehand, that the intensity of my desire to hear 
from you would have been an attractive force sufficiently strong to 
draw it into my hands in a shorter time. But it seems to have been 
projected into space with great centrifugal velocity, and almost to 
have foraied an orbit in which it might have revolved round me 
forever. New York was the point of its perihehon ; but there the 
centripetal prevailed, and brought it to the centre at once. I could 
not write you by the steamer of the 1st of this month ; for my en- 
gagements were so numerous, that I wanted not only the hundred 
hands of Briareus, but brains enough to keep them all at work. I 
was rejoiced, in common with your other friends here, to hear of 
your happy and quiet life. We wish our boisterous democracy 
could furnish you with a peaceful retreat ; but in our political lati- 
tudes there reigns one storm, and that is endless. I have often 
thought there was the closest analogy between the geological theory 
and human history ; a time for the wild commotion of all the human 
propensities, raging and battling with each other, and bursting up- 
ward through all the orders and classifications of society ; just 
as, in the early geological eras, the action of internal fires broke 
through the primary formations : and, pursuing this comparison 
farther, I have hoped that by and by these hostile forces of the 
social economy would subside, and lay the foundation of a state of 
society as much more propitious to human happiness than is the pres- 
ent, as the exuberance of the alluvial deposit is beyond the sterility 



158 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

of its granite substratum. All I hope is, that my life may be as a 
single leaf cast off from this deciduous generation, whose decompo- 
sition may add a single particle to the mass of deep and rich marl 
on which the growth of some future age shall luxui'iate, and gather 
nutriment for a glorious moral harvest. 

You say nothing would give you greater pleasure than a republi- 
cation of your works, but that you should be sorry if it were to 
injure the publishers. Your sympathy for them is useless. 
Assignees administer upon then- estate. I shall undoubtedly lose 
by them. But there is one consolation about this and other things 
that have been happening to me in a row, and, with small intervals, 
all my life : God created me without any love of money ; and, in 
all his works, there is no more striking instance of the adaptation of 
the thing made to its circumstances. . . . 

Howe is absent, and has been so almost all the time for nearly 
three months. Early in December, he went to Columbia, S. C, 
to visit the Legislature of that State, and obtain an appropriation 
for the education of their blind children. Though they were 
cold, and at first almost repulsed him, yet, when they granted 
him an opportunity for an exhibition before the members, they sur- 
rendered themselves unconsciously into his hands. His success 
was complete. An annual grant of $1,200 was made; and their 
blind children will be sent here this year. He afterwards went to 
Georgia ; but could only obtain the good will and the promises of 
the people there, as the high-mightinesses of the State were not in 
session. He then returned to Boston ; but did not stop more than 
a week, when, knight-en-ant like, he rushed forth again. He went 
to Louisville, and from there to Frankfort, and gave an exhibition 
in the State House. How well you must remember Frankfort, the 
quiet, sequestered little town, with its fountain of water playing in 
the yard, which you and I went to see ; the hill on the right bank 
of the river, which we climbed ; the tavern where we breakfasted so 
quietly, while you listened to the conversation of the revivalist 
minister with the impassive-souled judge about the praying govern- 
or ! All this seems like yesterday, — it seems Hke now. Only I 
look up to catch your glad eye and voice, and to grasp your hand, 
and am reminded that there are four thousand miles between us. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 159 

Dr. Howe gave an exhibition to the Kentuekians, and carried 
them away as by enchantment. They voted, by acclamation, 
$10,000 in aid of an institution for the blind, on condition that 
some city should commence a school, and sustain it for a year. 
He then went to Louisville ; and there such measiires have been 
taken as will doubtless eventuate in raising the necessary funds, 
and insuring a permanent establishment for this noble object. The 
success of an appeal to the sympathies of our people in behalf of 
the blind may be now calculated upon as one of the natural laios. 
It has been tried in nearly half the States of the Union, and has 
never failed. At the painful sight of the deprivation of their unfor- 
tunate children, followed by the gladdening spectacle of the results 
of the wonderful art by which that deprivation can be supplied, 
avarice itself relents, and opens its coffei'S, and suffers the almoner 
of this bounty to thrust in his arm elbow-deep. We have just 
heard that he has left Louisville for New Orleans, that he may give 
sight to the blind in that Grod-forsaken region. Those who have 
eyes there seem to be more sightless than the blind. They are 
doing something, however, even in New Orleans, for education. 
Within the last year, one of the municipalities of the city has estab- 
lished a system of common schools ; and my excellent friend, the 
Hon. John A. Shaw, — the man who prepared the minority report 
against the abolition of the Board of Education in 1840, — has gone 
out there to launch it. Indeed, there seems to be in several of the 
States a faint indication that there is but one remedy for our social 
ills, — the formation of minds whose intellectual vision can discern 
the laws by which social evils may be avoided, and whose well- 
trained sentiments pre-adapt and incline them to obedience. 

I am carrying on the ' ' Journal ' ' for another year, although a 
labor which I am unable to perform. But, while I do all the work 
for nothing, it just pays its way, and is doing some good. I do not 
know but it would be going too far — and, if so, you will pay no 
attention to it — to ask you to furnish me, during your residence 
in Germany, with a series of letters in relation to the German 
schools, — their course of studies, modes of instruction, discipline, 
order, qualifications of teachers, attainments of scholars, results, &c. ; 
any thing, in fact, which you could write without much labor, and 



160 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

which would be most interesting to our people, and most beneficial 
to our schools, whose condition and wants you well know. I think 
your charity could not find a more useful channel to flow out in ; 
and it would be most delightfal to me to spread your wise thoughts 
abroad amongst this numerous people, — more numerous than 
great. 

I have got out my Fifth Amiual Report. It is mainly addressed 
to the organ of acquisitiveness, and therefore stands some chance 
of being popular. In our Legislature, this winter, there is a very 
good feeling towards the Board and its improvements. The Rev. 
Dr. Palfi-ey, editor of the " North- American Review," has cut theolo- 
gy, and become a pohtician. He is Chairman of the Committee on 
Education in the House. All the committees of both houses are 

>/ friendly to the cause ; my two best friends there, Mr. Quincy, and 
Mr. Kinnicut of Worcester, being respectively President of the 
Senate, and Speaker of the House. If they could not give me good 
committees, of what use would it be to have one's friends in these 
offices? A bill is now pending before the Legislature to grant 
farther aid for the continuance of the Normal schools, and to en- 
courage, by a small bonus, the respective districts of the State to 
pui'chase a small school-hbrary. We have pretty strong hopes that 
it will pass. Mrs. Combe's parts of your " Notes " have been very 
much and universally admired : they are golden threads interwoven 
into the solid and endui'ing fabric of your own mind. I wish I had 
power equal to my will to bless her, and then there should be no 
room left for doubt as to quantity or quality. Some of my friends 
have been trying to send me to England ; but, while you are away, 
the whole island seems to me empty. When it is inhabited again, 
perhaps I may go to see it. Lord Morpeth and Dickens are both 

n/ in this country. Our political condition is very extraordinary; but 

I have not time to describe it. 

Most affectionately yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Feb. 28. To-moiTow there is to be a grand celebration at Salem, 
on account of the improvement and extension of their school-system. 
A great change has been eifected in that city, — a new body and 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 161 

a new soul ; new schoolhouses, and a new spirit among the teachers ; 
and to-morrow is to be aye^e-day. In the evening I am to lecture ; 
and on Wednesday evening I am to endeavor, by a lecture in 
Brookline, to carry out a plan for the establishment of a high school 
there. 

March 3. The brightest days which have ever shone upon our 
cause were yesterday and to-day. Yesterday, resolves passed the 
House for granting $G,000 per year for three years to the Normal 
schools ; and fifteen dollars to each district for a school-library, on 
condition of its raising fifteen dollars for the same purpose. 

Language cannot express the joy that pervades my soul at this 
vast accession of power to that machinery which is to carry the 
cause of education forward, not only more rapidly than it has ever 
moved, but to places which it has never yet reached. This will 
cause an ever-widening circle to spread amongst contemporaries, 
and will project influences into the future to distances which no <3al-' 
culations can follow. 

But I am too much exhausted to raise a song of gratulation that 
shall express my feelings. Yesterday I breakfasted at Salem ; came 
to the city ; found that all possible exertion was necessary ; worked 
all day; and at evening went to lecture at Brookline, to fulfil an 
engagement ; and returned at half-past nine, having spent the day 
without another meal. To-day I have been hardly less busy. But 
THE GKEAT WORK IS DONE \ We must now uso the power wisely 
with which we have been intrusted. 

March 8. The joy I feel on account of the success of our plans 
for the schools has not begun to be exhausted. It keeps welling 
up into my mind, fresh and exliilarating as it was the first hour of 
its occurrence. I have no doubt it will have an effect on my health 
as well as my spirits. The wearisome, depressing- labor of watch- 
fulness which I have undergone for years has been a vampire to 
suck the blood out of my heart, and the marrow out of my bones. 
I should, however, have held on until death ; for I felt my grasp 
all the tune tightening, not loosening. I hope I may now have the 
power of performing more and better labor. 

March 27. I am not well; but the success of the last session 
11 



162 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

is a perpetual spring of joy, throwing up continually sweet waters 
of satisfaction. 

April 17. I have been busy with lecturing and my Report. 
Incredible pleasure and relief of mind ai-e shed over my whole time 
by the glorious success of the cause in the Legislature. 

April 24. I understand that eighteen thousand copies of my 
last Report to the Board have been printed in Albany, for distribu- 
tion. This will caiTy it to many minds ; and, if it does any good, I 
shall be paid for all my labor. It is also translated into German. 

May 10. Niagara Falls. . . . The convention at Utica lasted tiU 
Friday. I arrived about ten o'clock this morning at Lockport, 
having travelled most uncomfortably in the canal-boat all night; 
thence to this place. I ran down to catch a hasty view of the Falls ; 
but, being much exhausted, returned to dine. After dinner, I sal- 
Hed forth, and have spent four houi'S on my feet, going from point to 
point, and gazing in astonishment and awe upon this great and varied 
work of Nature. The emotions it has excited I cannot now attempt 
to describe, — perhaps never ; but commonplaces of amazement and 
admiration ill befit this unique wonder of the world. 

May 17. Spent a day at Richmond, a border town of this State; 
and, so far as their interest in schools is concerned, they are on the 
borders, at least, of civihzation, if not a little on the other side. 
When will Berkshire rise from her degradation ? 

May 22. Yesterday, commenced the great labor of another Ab- 
stract. This is an appalling undertaking ; and were it not for its 
utihty, which I see more plainly than ever seed-sower saw the future 
harvest, its very aspect would repel me from attempting to perform 
it. But I go into it with good heart and zeal ; and, if my strength 
will only hold out, I shall count the toil more fondly than ever " a 
confined boy looked forward to his pastime." 

Mr. Mann had no clerk, and no appropriation was 
made for one ; and as he at this time spent all his salary, 
except what was sufficient for his bare necessities of 
board, lodging, and something to wear, in his office, he 
was obliged to do all his own writing and copying. He 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 163 

had no other assistance than what a friend occasionally 
insisted upon rendering him when his strength was seen 
to be nearly exhausted. But he worked now with pleas- 
ure, where formerly only hope illumined his efforts. 

July 3. To-morrow is an eventful day for me. I find that ex- 
pectations of my coming oration are raised high in some quarters ; 
and it will be difficult, if not impossible, for me to satisfy them. But 
aU that my strength and time enabled me to do I have done ; and 
nothing remains but to submit it to the terrible ordeal of pubHc 
opinion. Before twenty-four hours have passed, I shall know 
something of whether the great object I have in view — that of 
favorably influencing the public mind on this question of education 
— will be likely to be answered or not. 

July 19. How weaiy a life this would be if my soul were 
not in it ! but it is, and this renders the toil a pleasure. I see my 
efforts yielding their fruits ; and Grod grant they may be so abundant 
that all mankind may be filled ! Have been making a short visit at "^ 
my friend Mr. Quiacy^s, in Quincy. 

At this period, the Rev. Cyrus Pierce, who had so nobly ^ 
fulfilled his part in the educational work, as Principal of 
the Normal School, failed in health, wholly in consequence 
of the too great labor he had performed. When the 
Normal School at Lexington was first opened, the means 
for its support were very scanty ; and, during the time of 
its location there, Mr. Pierce not only did all the teaching, 
but superintended the interests of the boarding-house, and 
even rose every day at three o'clock to see that the fires 
were built ; allowing himself, for a great part of the time, 
only three hours sleep. No one but a thoroughly consci- 
entious teacher has any conception of the labor of keep- 
ing a good school. The exercises of school-hours form but 
a small part of that labor. The private study and prepa- 
ration, especially in a school of advanced character like a 
Normal school, where not only things are to be taught, 



164 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

but the best modes of teaching are to be considered, com- 
pared, discussed, tried, and watched over in the model 
school in which the pupils of the higher school practise 
their art under close criticism of the principal (and, in 
that case, Mr. Pierce was principal of both schools, passing 
from one to the other daily, with every faculty stimulated 
to its keenest work, in order to do justice to both), — this 
study and preparation, I repeat, were almost beyond the 
power of man to endure : and Mr. Pierce, though of the 
firmest fibrous temperament, became the victim of intense 
neuralgic pain, which obliged him to relinquish his office. 
Mr. Mann's grief at this necessity was inexpressible ; but 
he was obliged to look round, among the friends whom 
the progress of the cause had brought to his notice, for a 
successor. At this date, he wrote the following letter to 
Rev. S. J. May, who for the three succeeding years so 
ably filled the post vacated by Mr. Pierce : — 

Boston, July 27, 1842. 

Rev. S. J. May. My dear Sir, — ... The object of this 
note is to inquire, in an entirely confidential and unofficial manner, 
whether you will so far entertain the proposition as to allow me to 
present your name to the Board of Education for the Principalship 
of the Noimal School at Lexington. . . . 

My dear sir, neither my time nor my disposition allows me to in- 
dulge in compliment. You know something of what I think a Nor- 
mal school-teacher should be. With such opinions as I have of 
the qualifications for that office, you need no words of assurance 
of my regard for and opinion of you. . . . 
Very truly and sincerely yours, &c., 

HORACE MANN. 

Aug. 14. The American Institute of Instruction is to meet at 
New Bedford this week, and I shall probably kcture there. The 
meeting is important, and in that part of the State there is much 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 165 

need of a revival in educational matters. The soil of Bristol 
County is so thirsty, that it would absorb all the dews which a dozen 
institutes could distil upon it ; and even then I fear it would not be 
enriched to the point of vegetation. 

Aug. 21, A good meeting at New Bedford. About seventeen 
thousand copies of my oration have been pubKshed, and another 
edition of three thousand is to be issued this week. 

Auff. 28. Mr. Samuel J. May is probably to become principal 
of the school at Lexington. There will be at first an outcry on 
account of his abolition principles ; but I believe he will be consci- 
entious enough not to become a proselyter instead of a teacher. 

Sept. 4. On Monday last, I went to Springfield to see if arrange- 
ments could be made for establishing a Normal school at that place. 
... The Abstract is now out, and will, I trust, shed a flood of light 
over the State on the greatest and darkest of all subjects. . . . 

Oct. 20. I went to Springfield, as proposed ; where I found all 
my expectations thwarted in relation to estabhshing a Normal school 
at that place. Mr. Calhoun will try to do something for the droop- 
ing cause there. . . . 

I have not accomplished much during the last three weeks. 
Found my strength utterly prostrate from previous efforts. Hope 
to renew it, and go on rejoicing again. 

J)^ov. 9. ... I rejoice to find that evidences are everywhere 
springing up of the progress of the great work. A momentum has 
been given which will not soon be expended. Still I never felt so 
much like applying additional power, rather than relying upon the 
speed already attained. 

Nov. 13. . . . To-morrow I go to Falmouth to attend a meeting 
of teachers. Thus may perpetual droppings wear away the stone of 
ignorance. One drop I expect to shed on this occasion, in the form 
of a lecture. 

Dec. 11. Yesterday, attended a convention of school-teachers, 
and lectured before them. It is pleasant to see these proofs of in- 
terest on the part of teachers. They have a great deal yet to do; 
but these indications are not only performance, but promise for the 
future. 



166 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Boston, Dec. 13, 1842. 
Kev. S. J. May. 

My dear Sir, — ... I shall be desirous to be present at your 
examination, but fear I shall not be able to. My Annual 
Report * is mainly at the bottom of my inkstand yet : and I fear 
that my two great organs will experience just the reverse of what 
they should under all my torments ; that is, that I shaU have a 
hardening of the heart, and a softening of the brain. . . . 

Well, what is to become of us this winter ? Are we to fall into 
the hands of the Philistines '? If so, we must make friends of the 
mammon of party. I see a Democrat is to come from Lexington. 
Do you know him ? Can you magnetize him ? If so, infuse a ful- 
ness of the right spirit, though you faint in the operation. You 

know Mr. F , of Nantucket. He worked well for us last winter. 

Cannot you secure him for the present? Mr. R , of West 

Cambridge, also, was in favor of us last year. See him, if you can. 
If not, see his friends. Become all things to all men. Go, preach ; 
and wherever you preach, speaking with a flaming tongue, miracu- 
lously convert. Let us carry the cause through one year more, and 
I think the young giant will be able to take care of himself. 

Yours ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

Dec. 25. During the last week, an event highly favorable to 
the schools has taken place. Being filled with a desire (which 
might, perhaps, better be called a determination) to have the work 
of Messrs. Potter & Emerson, the " School and the Schoolmaster," 
distributed among the schools in the State of Massachusetts, as it 
has been among those of New York, by the liberality of Mr. Wads- 
worth, I ventured to make application to Mr. Brimmer, the Mayor 
elect of the city, to see if he would not take upon himself the ex- 
pense of this benefaction. With a readiness and a propriety highly 
creditable to him, he signified not only his assent to the proposition, 
but his pleasure in embracing it ; and he has authorized me to incur 
an expense not exceeding fifteen hundred dollars to carry out the 
plan. This will put an excellent work on the subject of education 

* To be presented the 1st of January. — Ed 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 167 

in the hands of every teacher in the State, — a glorious thing! 
How many minds will be opened to a perception of the momentous 
work ! how many will be stimulated ! how many withdrawn from 
the transitory pleasures of frivolity and dissipation ! What a har- 
vest of blessings will be reaped from the sowing of this seed ! 

When I see what good may be done with money, I sometimes 
wish that I had some at my command. 

Jan. 1, 1843. A new year ! The past year is now beyond mor- 
tal or immortal control. To me, to the cause I have most at heart, 
it has been a most auspicious year. Event after event has occurred 
to give that cause an impulse ; and I do not recollect any thing of 
an untowaixl character which is worthy to be mentioned. The 
grant for the libraries and for Normal schools, the increase of the 
town appropriations, the increasing interest felt in the subject by 
the people, and the well-timed donation of Mr. Brimmer of a work 
on education for all the schools in the State, attest the prosperity of 
the cause for the last year. 

But another year now opens. The great subject of inquiry now 
is, What fortunes await the cause before it shall close ? This inquiry 
I cannot answer, any further than to say, that what depends on 
human exertion shall not be wanting to its prosperity. I may die 
in the cause ; but, while I live, I will uphold it to the utmost of 
my strength. 

Jan. 22. . . . This week, Grovernor has come into power, 

and commenced his course by a most insidious and Jesuitical speech. 
He speaks of education ; but not one word is said of the Board of 
Education or of the Normal School. There is no recognition of the 
existence of improvements effected by them. Six years of as severe 
labor as any mortal ever performed — labor, too, which has cer- 
tainly been rewarded by great success — cannot procure a word of 
good will. This denial of justice, this suppressio veri, is of no 
consequence, only as it may prevent our doing as much as we other- 
wise might. But, if allowed to go on, a noble revenge shall be 
wrought, — that of making it apparent to the most prejudiced and 
unjust that much has been done. 

The following letters are given to show the principle 



168 LIFE OF -HORACE MANN. 

upon which Mr. Mann conducted his educational labors. 
He thought it right and essential to keep them from all 
party influences ; knowing that politics, in our country, 
vitiated every subject they touched. May we not hope 
now that that day is passing away ? 

Mr. May thinks it not judicious to publish the letters, as 
the public mind has undergone such a change upon this 
subject, that he fears it will injure Mr. Mann's reputation 
with some good men ; but I am induced to do it, contrary 
to his advice, which I still respect for its motive, because 
Mr. Mann has been accused of timidity, and want of hon- 
orable openness and independence in his caution. His 
own rendering of the subject will show the fallacy of this ; 
and his subsequent public course upon the subject of 
slavery shows plainly enough that he feared no man, and 
that he never renounced his principles for the sake of 
popularity. Nor did any one ever love the man, whom 
all his friends involuntarily call " dear Mr. May," better 
than he ; and none the less, but all the more, because Mr. 
May is, by his nature and culture alike, so profound 
a hater of slavery. What a comment it is. upon the 
torpid state of the national conscience at that time, that 
no public interest was safe that was associated with the 
desire to do away chattel slavery ! 



Boston, Jan. 27, 1843. 
Rev. S. J. Mat. 

My dear Sir, — I have been debating with myself for almost a 
fortnight whether I ought, or whether I ought not, to write you on 
a certain subject. At last, musing here, just before twelve o'clock, 
and warming my toes for bed, I have resolved to do so. Could 
you see my feelings just as they are, I should need no other apology. 
I can only assure you that it is from kindness alone that I do it. 

I was at W a fortnight ago to-morrow evening, where I met 

a number of gentlemen at Dr. H 's. The doctor and his 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 169 

family spoke very kindly of you, and expressed, with every appear- 
ance of sincerity, a great personal regard. But the doctor observed 
that you had lost a very fine girl from one of their most respectable 
famihes, in consequence of your having visited W a few even- 
ings before, with a portion of your pupils, on the occasion of an anti- 
slavery meeting. Very little else was said ; but the obvious feeling 
was, that it was a pity that theoretical antislavery should prove to 
be practical anti-education, by depriving your school of a valuable 
pupil, and yourself, to some extent, of the respect of an influential 
citizen. 

I write this in no unkindness, and in no spirit of fault-finding, 
but merely to apprise you of the consequences of your visit there on 
that occasion. I confess myself one of those who hold the maxim 
to be a damnable one, that "our actions are our own : the conse- 
quences belong to God." We cannot separate the action from 
the consequence ; and therefore the latter is as much our own as the 
former. Consequences aid us in determining the moral character 
of an action, as much as they do the physical properties of a body ; 
and, as it seems to me, I may as well adopt a theory that fire will 
not ignite gunpowder, and then flourish a torch round a magazine, 
and say, " Consequences belong to Grod," as to say it in reference 
to any thing else. 

But I will not go on moralizing further. I have eased my con- 
science ; and I trust you will take this letter as it is intended, — 
perfectly in good part. . . . 

Yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Boston, Feb. 6, 1843. 

Rev. S. J. May, — I had strong hopes of being able to see you 
to-day; but the printers of my Report, after having worn my 
patience all out by delay, are now sending it to me so fast, that I 
cannot leave. If any one inquires why I am not there, please 
tell them the reason. 

I have been anxious to reply to your last letter ever since I re- 
ceived it, but so much engaged that it has been impossible. Some 
things I think you have misunderstood, and others misrecoUected. 



170 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

For instance : I did not say that the young lady at W de- 
clined to go to Lexington because of the visit of yourself and 
pupils to the antislavery meeting. Yet you reply, that, if she 
were prevented from going for the reason assigned, "she must be 
inferior in mind and heart to many" whom you have. It was not 
the young lady : it was her father who refused to let her go, be- 
cause he thought your going to an abolition meeting in term-time, 
and canying the scholars, was aside from the purposes of the school, 
and of bad example. For aught I know, the young lady herself 
might have been an abolitionist, or good stuff from which to make 
one. Thus the school lost one pupil at least, and some friends. 
And this reminds me of what you say of your pupils, — that some 
of them were abolitionists when they came there, or were made so by 
Father Pierce. Father Pierce had no right to make them so, any 
more than he had to make them Unitarians, or Bank or anti-Bank 
in their politics. One was just as much a violation of his duty 
(if he did the act) as the other would be. We want good teach- 
ers of our common schools, and that is what the State and the pa- 
trons of the Normal schools have respectively given their money to 
prepare ; and any diversion of it to any other object is obviously a 
violation of the trust. 

Pardon me for saying one word in reference to yourself. You 
certainly said that you did not mean to withdi-aw from the aboli- 
tionists, and that, by receiving more salary, you should be able to 
contribute more money to that cause ; but did you not also say 
that the school should have the whole of your energies? The 
extremest remark you ever made to me in regard to any active co- 
operation in abolition movements was, that if, in vacation, you hap- 
pened to be at a place where an abolition meeting was held, you 
should not consider yourself debarred from attending it. This 
sm-ely seems to me different from carrying your own pupils to such 
a meeting in term-time, and indulging in remarks which disaffected 
several very excellent friends of the school, and prevented one 
pupil from attending it. 

I certainly say these things with no particle of unkindness to 
yourself. I think you will see, with me, which is the highest cause, 
or at least that the interests of the Normal School ought not to be 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 171 

impaired, nor its friends alienated, by active, public co-operation, 
not only by yourself, but with your pupils, and in term-time. 

But I have time to write no more. I am sorry I cannot see 
you to-day. I hope I may soon. If in the city, do not fail to 
call. . . . 

In a letter from Mr. Pierce, he says you are doing very well ; but 
he does not think you make the pupils agonize quite so much 
as might be well for them. 

Yours truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



Boston, Feb. 22,1843. 
Rev. S. J. May. 

My dear Sir, — If, a few days ago, I overcame all doubt as to 
the propriety of addressing you on the subject of the actual loss 
which had occurred to your school in consequence of your zeal in 
another cause so alien from it, how can I forbear, at the present 
time, to point out consequences still more serious, which must re- 
sult from pursuing the same course? If I believed you to have any 
doubt of the personal friendship and sincerity of my motives, I 
should first endeavor to convince you of that fact. But I must as- 
sume this, without a preamble. Pardon me, then, for saying that it 
is with inexpressible regret that I learn from the pubhc newspapers 
that you are to be one of the lecturers for the abolition course about 
to be delivered in this city. Every friend of yours, and of the 
cause with which you hold so important a connection, is pained be- 
yond measure at this annunciation. Three of your friends, , 

, , have spoken to me upon the subject with sincere grief. 



In the first place, it is the middle of a term ; so that the imme- 
diate accusation will be, by the opponents of the cause which you 
volunteer to espouse, that you are neglecting the duties of the 
school. I do not mean to say that I would make such a charge, 
but that it is too obvious not to be made. 

In the second place, we have entertained great fears for the fate 
of the whole educational system during the present session ; and 
these are not wholly dissipated. The Legislature is now in session, 
and we know there are many members of it who would rejoice in 



172 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

any pretext for making an attack upon the Board and tlie Normal 
schools. I cannot expect that the event announced m the papers 
can take effect without open or secret and extensive animadver- 
sions being made upon it. I have had a talk with your represen- 
tative, and he is disposed to he reconciled ; but he expressly stated 
that his dissatisfaction with your appointment had arisen from his 
fears that you would more or less abandon the school to propagate 
your views on another subject, which fears he now hopes were 
gToundless. Will you give occasion for the revival of those fears, 
and put an unanswerable argument in his mouth against all that I 
can say ? Being a Democrat, he could lead a great many of that 
paity with him. 

But a thh-d consideration is perhaps still more important. A 
pubhc interest and sympathy are now excited through the Com- 
monwealth in behalf of the cause of education. With the excep- 
tion of Mv. Dwight's donation, more has been given by rich men 
during the last year for its general promotion, probably, than ever 
before. ... If I had not succeeded in producing a conviction, that, 
while I am engaged in administering the cause, it will be kept clear 
of all collateral subjects, of all which the world chooses to call fanati- 
cisms or hobbies, I should never have obtained the co-operation of 
thousands who are now its friends. I have farther plans for ob- 
taining more aid ; but the moment it is known or supposed that the 
cause is to be perverted to, or connected with, any of the exciting 
party questions of the day, I shall never get another cent. I 
shall be bereft of all power in regard to individuals, if not in re- 
gard to the State. 

And again : did you not tell me, again and again, that, if the 
public would let you alone in regai'd to your abolition views, you 
thought you could get along well enough with your friends ? But 
how can you expect that the public will let you alone, if they find 
you, every term, making abolition speeches or dehvering abohtion 
lectures, and exhibiting yourself as a champion of the cause in a way 
and on occasions which so many will deem offensive ? The public is 
not wont to be so tolerant. You must not mistake my motives ; 
and, if you think I am speaking too plainly, you must pardon it for 
the zeal I have in the cause. . . H. M. 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 173 

Feb. 5. Last week, a libel was publislied against me in the "Mer- 
cantile Journal;" and thus sometliing is continually occurring to 
take away almost all the comfort of my life, except that which arises 
from the prosperity of the great cause. Well, then, I must make 
that prosperity my comfort. 

Feb. 12. Were I to record all my thoughts, feelings, hopes, 
fears, for the week, they would make a volume. If I do not re- 
cord them, I have little to say. I go to Manchester, N.H., on 
Wednesday, to lecture. To hope to accomplish any thing in New 
Hampshire by one lecture is as vain as to expect to make the ocean 
boil by throwing in one coal of fire. 

Feb. 19. . . . Yesterday the whole question of the school-libraries 
was opened again in the House of Representatives, and was sus- 
tained by a crushing majority. So the cause has evidently ad- 
vanced almost incredibly within two or three years. It now needs 
discreet and energetic management : it will then be able to take 
care of itself. 

March 5. . . . Last night I read the last revise of my Report. 
So now, for good or for evil, it is done ; and I trust it will eventual- 
ly do good, but shall not be surprised if it is not well received. 



CHAPTER V. 



ON the Ist of May, 1843, Mr. Mann was again married, 
and sailed for Europe to visit European schools, 
especially in Germany, where he expected to derive most 
benefit. He hoped thus to do more for American schools 
than he could do, just at that juncture, by remaining 
at home. He thought the good cause was safely ground- 
ed in the estimation of the people ; and now it only re- 
mained to improve methods of instruction, and to bring 
the subject of moral education more fully before the 
public. To this end, he had set in operation the most 
adequate means, — the Normal schools, — and placed 
them in the hands of men, who, as far as he could judge, 
saw the importance of that element in human culture. 

The opposition he had been forced to encounter, and the 
double labor this had cost him, had seriously affected his 
health ; and a change seemed absolutely necessary for his 
brain, which was in such a preternatural state of activity, 
that he could not sleep. As his friend Dr. Howe ex- 
pressed it, " it went of itself." 

The excursion did not prove so much of a recreation as 
his friends hoped it would. His time of absence was lim- 
ited to six months ; and his attention was so much ab- 
sorbed in educational matters, that he had little strength 
or leisure to devote to mere amusement. It was his habit 
to spend the day, from seven till five o'clock, in visiting 
schools, prisons, and the men who were interested in these, 
and many of his evenings in reading documents which he 

174 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 175 

gathered in bis progress. He needed the snggestions of 
others even to see other things that he passed by the way. 
He read, but could not speak, the modern languages ; but, 
with the help of an imperfect interpreter by his side, prob- 
ably few men ever made such a visitation who gleaned 
more fruits. The " white-haired gentleman," as he was 
called, excited much interest in the schoolmasters, to 
whom he did not always give his name ; for he wished to 
see the schools in undress, and therefore visited them un- 
officially, when that was possible, though always duly armed 
with credentials from the Ministers of Instruction. He was 
treated with much courtesy ; though it is to be doubted 
whether the good men of the schools often underwent 
such a searching examination, not only into their pro- 
ceedings, but into the theories and motives that impelled 
them. Probably not a few of them had glimpses of some 
aims of education they had not thought of before, — not 
through any formal instructions from the " white-haired 
gentleman," but simply from the questions he asked. 

The main results of the tour were given to the public 
in his Seventh Annual Report to the Board of Education. 
In Germany alone he met with any true comprehension 
of what he regarded as moral and religious instruction. 
The effect of his Report of it at home was to shake some 
dry bones that had apparently become not only fossilized, 
but firmly embedded. 

I give a few extracts from his journal. 

Liverpool, May, 1843. 

On the 16tli we visited Eaton Hall, one of the seats of the Mar- 
quis of Westminster. The income of this nobleman is said to be 
$5,000 per day. The avenues which lead to it from Chester are 
several miles in length, skirted with hedge and all varieties of forest 
trees. Herds of deer and cattle were grazing or ruminating in the 
grounds. Swans bedecked the quiet lakes. Trees to which each 



176 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

season for centuries had added bulk and loftiness stood around. 
At last, the massive pile opened upon our view. As we approached 
it, we saw some ten or dozen old women, with coarse features and a 
coarser garb, carrying away upon their hachs the limbs of a large 
tree which had been felled ; and around other parts of the premises, 
and in the pleasure-grounds, other groups of the same sex were 
busily employed weeding the walks, gathering in the new-mown 
hay, &c. The gardens and pleasure-grounds cover fifty-two acres, 
— about the size of Boston Common. Here was apparently every 
variety of flower and plant and fruit which could be found on the 
globe. Hot-houses were prepared for the productions of the South ; 
rocks, grottoes, and places adapted to the cultivation of the feeble 
and scanty gi'owths of the North. Beds of pine-apples were 
ripening. Peach-trees were trained against the walls. Straw- 
berries, cherries, &c., hung in luscious clusters. Vats of capacious 
dimensions were set under glass for the cultivation of the Egyptian 
lotus, &c. Long sheds, with bins upon the side, were constructed 
for the growth of the mushroom and potato sprouts. Artificial grot- 
toes were scattered along winding passages ; the whole sometimes 
assuming the form of the most regularly laid out garden, and again 
winding away into labyi'inths. But a description is impossible. 

The house was constructed and furnished in a style of indescriba- 
ble elegance. . . . The marble floor of the entrance hall was said to 
have cost 75,000 dollars. It was adorned with splendid pictures, 
coats of mail, magnificent tables, &c. The hall of communication 
(a miniature imitation of the cloistered aisles of Chester Cathedral) 
is 740 feet in length, lined with pictures and groups of statuary. 
When we came to a splendid piano in the library, the attendant, 
who was a lady di-essed in violet-colored satin, adorned with heavy 
black lace, told us the young ladies played very well ; and in the 
garden we were afterwards shown ' ' the young ladies' garden. ' ' Ah ! 
was there no spot in the souls of these tenderly reared daughters 
where a brighter flower than any ever formed of rain and sunshine 
could have been cultivated, — the flower of sympathy for others' 
hearts, by Natuie formed of as fine a mould, and, in the sight of God, 
of as high a price, as their own ? Was there no time when all the 
richest music wrought in the burning souls of the highest genius 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 177 

might have been bartered for the gi'ateful voices of sorrow and pov- 
erty and crime which these daughters might have eheited ? Well 
might all these accomplishments, and all this splendor and beauty, 
have been bartered for these ; for heaven would have been given 
them as a requital. 

I left in a state of mind which I cannot now express. I hope 
my feehngs will find a form of utterance at some future time. 

The next day, we visited Chester Cathedral. Of the antiquity 
of this there can be no doubt. No art can prepare a counterpart. 
Time puts a certain wrinkle and sallowness on its objects, that no 
common colorer can imitate, or graver etch. This cathedral is sup- 
posed to be twelve or thirteen centuries old. Its dimensions are 
vast. Here we saw a bit of a tomb of seven centuries. We went 
into rooms which were once occupied by nuns. Many old associa- 
tions arose. These must always rise while the history of the secret 
deeds of monasteries and nunneries remains. 

This ancient cathedral and splendid castle, and the 
poor old women, made an impression upon Mr. Mann 
that farther travel in England only deepened. Passing 
from high to low, from palace, castle, cathedral, to prison, 
school, and cottage, the glory and the shame of England 
were ever in sad and striking contrast. In a letter to his 
sister, written May 15, he says, — 

I am here at a very interesting time, so far as the general ques- 
tion of education is concerned. A bill is now before Parliament for 
the establishment of a national system ; but it is framed with such 
express reference to the promotion and extension of the Established 
Church, that it meets opposition from all the Dissenters. It ori- 
ginally gave all the power of appointing teachers and supervising 
the schools to the members of the church, and then it prohibited 
any manufacturer from employing any child who had not received 
a certificate from a school which the church approved ; and there- 
fore made the bread, as well as the intellect and morals, of all, 
dependent upon their will. But, if I begin to write on so prolific a 
theme, where shall I stop ? . . . 

12 



178 LIFE OF HORACE MAKiJ. 

In what did this bill differ from the persecutions of 
nonconformists, which drove the Puritans from England 
in days gone by ? 

May — . In passing from Liverpool to London on the raihoad, 
we were struck with tlie exuberance of the vegetation. The fields 
were all so monotonously gi-een, that at last I longed for a piece of 
Cape Cod for vaiiety. . . . But we saw scarcely a large tree in the 
whole journey. ... I was quite struck with the comparative amount 
of gi-azing and mowing land, compai-ed with the tillage. More land 
sown to wheat, or planted with esculent roots, would very much 
increase the sustenance of man. 

May'lO. Visited Westminster Abbey. Here are deposited the 
truly great and the sham great. The truly gi-eat, however, are 
principally by themselves, in what is called the " Poets' Comer." 
The sham great are scattered about in the various chapels or niches. 
Here and there, however, a genuine man, such as Lord Mansfield, 
WUberforce, Watt, was placed by the side of a king or queen, 
like gold pieces among copper pennies. . . . Here were deposited 
the remains of Ben Jonson, Milton, Diyden, Pope, Addison, &c. 
Among the kings and queens, there was a sprinkUng of ladies of 
the bed-chamber, masters of the hounds, pimps, &c., who obtained 
this resting-place for their bones through favoritism. A statue of 
one of the kings had been covered with sUver, with an entire head 
of the same metal. The head had been wrung off by some one 
at once acquisitive and unloyal, — probably done more from the 
acquisitive than the democratic instinct. A monument had been 
erected to one of Cromwell's generals, — Popham, — which was 
threatened with removal after the Restoration ; but at the interces- 
sion of his wife, and a proposition to have the whole inscription 
-erased, it was suffered to remain. It is now a blank. 

Cromwell himself was buried here ; but his remains were removed 
•by his successor, and it is said they were hung at Tyburn. 

The finest statue was that of Lord Mansfield. 

The whole hardly impressed me so much as I expected. 

May 23. Visited Smithfield Market, where John Rogers was 
burned. Is it not strange that the oddity of that ambiguous state- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 179 

ment about the number of his children should almost universally 
have the effect of repressing all sympathy for the martyr, and all 
indignation against his tormentors ? 

Visited "Rag Fair," or the old-clothes market, which is a large 
open area, nearly square, all trodden to a mire, with coarse wooden 
booths on the side, prepared in the rudest manner, and so finished 
that there has been no waste of skill upon the material. When 
filled with old clothes, and wretched traffickers in them, what a 
scene it must present ! Afterwards, taking a police-officer, I passed 
through covered markets for the same object, where sacks and 
bundles of old clothes were being opened and displayed, or had 
already been shaken out, and spread upon rough-board stalls, or 
counters. They were, probably, the joint product of the previous 
night's purchases and thefts. A more deplorable sight than the 
fetid, squalid wretches exhibited can hardly be imagined. 

Went also through the Jews' quarter, where, from narrow, pent- 
up lanes, holes and caverns opening on either side, poured forth 
the foulest stench. The eye also was repelled that would penetrate 
to their loathsome recesses. What a place to lie in immediate 
proximity with so much luxury, voluptuousness, and superfluous 
wealth ! From these dens of vice, debasement, and iniquity, we at 
length emerged, and passed through some respectable streets. One 
was that in which John Milton was born, — then named G-rub 
Street. Onward we went through Billingsgate Fish Market, the 
sight of which added intensity to the meaning of the word, which 
had its origin in the foul language of that locality. In looking 
around, one could well imagine that he saw the genius of the place. 

Went into the " long room " of the Custom House; and a long 
room it surely is. And why should not the room be long in which 
account is taken of the products of all the climes in the world, as 
they are borne to this spot by every wind that blows ? 

Visited Grreenwich Hospital. Here reside seventeen or eighteen 
hundred sailors, mutilated, broken down, or decayed in the service 
of the nation, — ' the results of war. Who would not be a peace 
man after beholding such a spectacle ? Hardly a battle has been 
fought by England witlun fifty years but here is one of its victims. 
Should each one of them tell his history, what a volume it would 



180 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

make ! Yet how few are these representatives, compared with the 
constituency of the dead which they represent, — each one, perhaps, 
representiag a thousand ! In the great painted hall of the hospital 
are numerous and splendid paintings, commemorative of Britain's 
naval glory, as it is called. Here the remembrance of all her 
triumphs is perpetuated. Every child who visits this place is 
taught to feel loyalty for the sovereign, a pride in his country, and 
an ambition to distinguish himself in her service. In one glass 
case was the veiy coat in which Nelson was shot at the battle of 
the NUe ; in another, the model of some celebrated ship, frauglit 
with historical associations ; and so of all its garniture. Wherever 
I go, this not only suggests itself to my mind, but forces itself upon 
my senses. At Westminster Abbey, at St. Paul's, at all the public 
buildings, there are monuments to honor the heroes of the nation, 
whether on land or sea, and to embalm their memories. How deep 
and energetic must be the effect of all this upon the national char- 
acter ! Wliat the Roman Cathohcs do, by means of shrines and 
pictures and images, to secure the blind devotion of their disciples, 
the leading minds of Great Britain do to secui-e the feeling of 
national pride. 

The park belonging to the hospital is an object of great beauty. 
The grounds rise to a considerable height, and overlook the country 
for some distance. Here is the celebrated Observatory by which 
time is regulated all round the globe. On the top of the dome, 
and resting upon it, is a large ball, through which the spire of the 
observatory passes up. At a minute before twelve o'clock every 
day, this ball is made to rise half-way up the spire. An instant 
before twelve, it rises to the top, and then suddenly falls. It is 
now twelve o'clock at Greenwich, and a corresponding hour, wher- 
ever a British ship floats, all over the world. 

From this we descended, strange emotions filling my breast, and 
took our seats in the railway, built for about four miles on arches 
sustaining it above the tops of the houses, so that it could not have 
been necessary, for its construction, to remove any more dwellings 
than enough to make room for the abutments. 

On Monday, I spent the evening with Carlyle. What pleased 
me most in IVIr. Carlyle was the genuine, boyish, unrestrained 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 181 

heartiness of his laugh. Made the acquaintance of Mr. Kay Shut- 
tleworth, and of Edwin Chadwick, Esq., author of an " Inquuy into 
the Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Classes of Great Britain." 
With these men I am highly delighted. 

May 25. Made the acquaintance of Leonard Horner, Esq. ; a 
very sensible man, the chahman of the Factory Commission. Had 
much conversation with him on the subject of education in Eng- 
land and America. 

He said, that, as factory commissioner, he had many times seen 
certificates of school-teachers given to children, to certify their 
attendance upon the master's school, signed by a cross, because the 
teachers were unable to write their own names. He also said 
he once saw some reason to doubt whether one of this class of teach- 
ers could read. He sent for him, and asked the question, whether 
he could read. " Summat," said he : "at any rate, I keeps ahead of 
the children." 

Visited a Normal school, where we heard one of the teachers 
take passage after passage from the Liturgy, call upon his pupils for 
an exposition of its meaning, and then for passages from Scripture 
to prove it. Among these was cited, without a word of comment, 
that interpolated passage, that " there are three that bear record in 
heaven, " &c. What a powerful machinery for sustaining the Church, 
whether its doctrines are right or wi'ong, and without any reference 
to their being right or wrong ! The conductors or sustainers of the 
school do not approve this plan of upholding the doctrines of the 
Church by religious doctrinal instruction in the school, and would 
gladly modify its course to a very great extent : but they declare 
that they must have this education, or none at all; that, if they were 
to omit the doctrinal part of instruction, the whole influence of the 
Establishment would be directed against them, and would crush 
them immediately. They therefore submit to it as to an inevitable 
evil. 

I afterwards went to the National Training College, Stanley 
Grove. This is a Normal school established by the National Soci- 
ety. The land, buildings, and fixtures have cost $103,000 ; and 
sixty pupils are the extent proposed to be educated here. How 
enormous an outlay for the object to be accomplished ! ... In this 



182 LIFE OF HORACE MANN, 

Normal school, not only the doctrines but the discipline of the 
Church are regularly taught; and Mr. Coleridge, the principal, 
says his hope is to raise up a class of teachers auxiliary to the 
Church, — a sort of half-clergymen, — and station them all oyer the 
land. Here, again, is power perpetuating itself. 

May 29. Breakfasted with Mr. Wliately, the Archbishop of 
Dublin, whom I found to be a very agreeable man, full of youthful 
vivacity and spu'its, kindly in his feehngs, and republican in his 
principles. He said a great many playful things, such as generally 
interest school-boys rather than theologians, — as, how can it be 
proved that there are many persons in the world having the same 
number of hairs on their heads ; the old fable of the hare and the 
tortoise, &c. : and showed me the manner of constructing and 
throwing the boomerang, — a New-Holland weapon ; also their 
method of formino; a slino;. 

WliGu I led him to speak on education, he evinced the most 
liberal spirit ; eulogized the benefits of mere secular education ; 
and said that the great and the only principle was to include as 
much of religious instmction as practicable, and to omit all the 
rest. There is no doubt of his being a great man ; and I beheve he 
is also a good one. 

Visited a school in Sharp Alley, which is conducted on princi- 
ples of toleration. It is called the " City of London Royal British 
School for Boys;" and one of its regulations is, "that the school 
be open to persons of every religious persuasion," and " that no 
book, commentary, or interpretation, tending to inculcate the pecu- 
liar tenets of any religious denomination, shall be admitted on any 
pretence whatever." The school is patronized almost equally by 
Churchmen and Dissenters, and both Roman Cathohcs and Jews 
attend it. The teacher told me that he was a Churchman, but that, 
as he was placed there to educate all the children without partiahty 
or proselytism, he did not attempt the inculcation of his own pecu- 
liar opinions. 

I was much pleased with the general method of instruction 
adopted in the school. Res non verba was the practical motto. 
Cards and prints were freely used, and every thing not understood 
was explained. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 183 

May 30. Visited St. Paul's, where there was a musical re- 
hearsal of all the children belonging to the Sunday schools of Lon- 
don. It is said that on the anniversary celebration there are ten or 
twelve thousand collected together, and probably nearly as many 
adults attend as spectators, Gralleries were fitted up under the 
dome of this immense edifice ; and here the children were seated 
in the centre, while seats rising at each end in the form of an amphi- 
theatre afforded accommodation for the vast audience. The view 
from the Whispering Gallery, to which we ascended, was most im- 
pressive. What a mass of human life, of human hopes and fears, 
of happiness and misery, was collected within that circle ! Had 
there been a sudden revelation of all the future history of that 
company, who could have borne it ? But these musings are useless, 
only as they stimulate one to greater exertions for the welfare of 
the young ; and Grod knows I need no such stimulus. Nothing 
can ever alienate me from my sworn love of the young, nor divert 
my wishes and exertions from what I believe will best promote their 
welfare. 

We then went to the Tower, where we saw how little and bad 
men could tyrannize over the great and good. We saw the style of 
the armor — and much of it was original — of more than twenty 
British kings ; the frightful implements of war in use before the in- 
vention of gunpowder ; the dungeon in which Sir Walter Raleigh 
was confined, and the stone room in which he slept for eight years. 
We saw the tower where the two children were murdered by the 
command of Richard, &c. We also saw the Regalia, or treas- 
ures of the crown, all of which a man might carry easily in his 
arms, and which are valued at three millions of pounds sterling : 
the crown alone, of the shape of a boy's cap without any visor, 
cost a milhon of pounds sterling. Three millions of pounds in the 
Regalia, and more than three millions of destitute, almost starving, 
subjects ! 

Visited the rooms, pictures, &c., of the Duke of Sutherland, at 
Stafibrd House, near Buckingham Palace. These are splendid 
beyond any thing I ever saw. . . . Were there no crime and no 
poverty in the world, how one would enjoy this ! 

Went to Windsor ; and, having a ticket for special admission to 



184 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

the private apartments, we traversed them. To go to one end, that 
we might return through the suite, we traversed a corridor as long 
as Park Street, hterally Hned, almost as closely as they could be 
placed, with paintings, statues, &c., and the sides piled up with 
fumiture, all the articles of which, as the Queen is not residing 
there now, had their covering, or night-clothes, on. From this we 
visited the plate-rooms, where the service of plate for the palace is 
kept. These are two rooms of very considerable size, with shelves 
behind glass doors, Hterally loaded down with plate. Most of the 
articles, we were told, were only silver gilt. Thei-e was nothing so 
poor as silver visible. Many articles were inlaid with diamonds. 
4 There was a lion's head of solid gold, as large as life, with cut 
^^.. crystal for teeth ; and a little bird, not so large as a pigeon, but 
intended to represent a peacock, its breast and plumes all inlaid 
with diamonds and precious stones, the value of which was thirty 
thousand pounds sterling. These two last-named articles were 
taken from Tippoo Saib. Are they mementoes of triumph, or of as 
wicked a plunder as ever one committed against another on Houns- 
low Heath ? 

Havuig sated our eyes with all these wonders, we returned by 
railroad as far as Hanwell, the celebrated Lunatic Asylum. It is 
a grand establishment, under the care of Dr. John Connolly.'* 

We had a delightful evening at Sir J C 's, where we saw 

•many admirable people, — Dr. Arnott, the author of " Physics ; " 
Dr. Reid, now employed by government in superintending the 
structure of the new Parliament House, and in regulating the heat, 
ventilation, &c., of the old one ; the Rev. P. Kelland, Professor of 
Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh ; Mr. James Simpson, 
'^ the writer on education ; Mr. Chadwick, &c. 

June 1. Called on Mr. Wyse, the author of the work on educar 
tion, and had a very interesting conversation. ... In the afternoon, 
visited the Home and Colonial Infant-school. This is a fine institu- 
tion, conducted on the Pestalozzian system ; and I was told by Mr, 
John Reynolds, the principal, that nine-tenths of all the children in 
the kingdom get all the education they ever receive before they are 
nine years of age. 

* This is one of the institutions for the insane, described in " Very Hard Cash." 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 185 

June 2. Visited the Blue Coat School, or Christ's Hospital, 
as it is called. This school consists of about a thousand scholars. 
. . . The uniform or dress of the boys is peculiar. The school was 
founded in the time of Edward VI. , and the dress remains the same 
now as it was originally. It consists of no hat; the boys going out 
in all weathers, at all seasons of the year, and to all parts of 
the city, bare-headed. I was told they never caught cold in the 
head. It would be well to inquire whether they ever have catarrhs, 
&c. About the neck, they wear a band, like a clergyman, not of 
lawn, but of coarse cotton. A long blue coat — coat above, but 
gown below — reaches to the feet, so full as to meet in front. The 
rest of the dress is small-clothes and coarse yellow stockings. The 
small-clothes button at the knee. The writing in this school is 
the most beautiful I ever saw. The method of instruction is very 
simple; the elements only of the letters being given, without any 
frame-work of lines by which to draw them. ... I asked the head 
master. Dr. Rice, what instruction he gave his pupils in morahty. 
He smiled, or rather sneered, and said he considered the teaching 
of morahty a humbug : he taught religion, not morality. I asked 
him if he did not inculcate the duty and explain the obligation of 
truth, and the vice and turpitude of falsehood. He said that could 
be of little or no use ; that Nature taught children to lie ; that he 
explained to them from the Bible that the Devil was the father of 
lies ; that, when a boy told a lie, he set him a copy, — such as, 
" Lying is a base and infamous offence," — and required him to write 
a quire of paper over with the sentence ; that the offenders were 
generally submissive, for they well knew, that, if they showed any 
spirit of defiance, they would receive a sound flagellation. He 
added, that corporal punishment was much less used than formerly. 

After this edifying conversation, I left him. How strange it is, 
that, on every other subject, the existence of reason is acknowledged : 
on that of religion, the most important of aU, blind authority is 
appealed to ! 

After a survey of the premises where the Houses of Parliament 
are, and are to be, I went into the House of Commons, and sat 
three or four hours listening to an animated, though not very inter- 
esting, debate on the Canada Corn Bill. Here I heard Shiel (the 



186 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Irish orator), Lord Stanley, Mr. Hope, Mr. Woodhouse, Admiral 

Sir Charles Napier (the stormer of Beyroot) : and last a Lord N 

make a most violent and abusive speech against Mr. B ; to 

which the poor commoner, Mr. B , only responded by a very 

servile speech, fliaging sops where he ought to have flung daggers, 
and whining when he should have thundered. The abuse from the 
" noble lord " was heartily cheered. 

Visited the Union Workhouse, Gray's Inn Lane. . . . The whole 
seemed to be well conducted, and impressed me very favorably 
with the measures that are taken to relieve people after they have 
become poor. 

On Friday I visited Pentonville Prison. It is on the Pennsyl- 
/ vania system of solitary confinement ; the intention being that no two 
prisoners shall have an opportunity to see each other while in prison, 
so that they may go out as great strangers as they come in. The 
arrangements to produce this result are certainly very curious ; but 
I doubt whether they fully accomphsh it. Another professed object 
is never to let a prisoner see a stranger visitor, nor a stranger visitor 
a prisoner ; and yet I am certain, that, if I had desired it, I could 
have taken such a view of many of them as would have enabled me 
to recognize them after then' discharge. Each prisoner, when out 
of his cell, wears a close woollen cap, coming down veiy low, with 
a long visor, or peak, which they are requh-ed to drop down over 
.the face, and which nearly covers it all fi-om view. Little eyelet- 
holes in this peak enable them to see any object immediately before 
them ; and, when they are marched out to the airing-yards or to 
the chapel, they are required to keep behind each other, and at some 
distance apart. The arrangements of the chapel and schoolroom 
(which are the same) are very ingenious. The tiers of seats rise 
behind each other, amphitheatre-fashion, very steep : the prisoners 
enter single file ; and each one, as he takes his allotted seat, shuts 
his pew-door, which is high, and which eifectually precludes him 
from seeing any other individual whatever except the minister or 
teacher. . . . The contrivance for watching the prisoners, when 
airing themselves in then- yards, is equally ingenious. The yards 
radiate from a centre, separated from each other by a high brick 
wall. The occupants of the yards are watched from a centre. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 187 

Orifices in a brick wall surrounding the very centre command each 
yard. In another brick wall, within this, are similar smaller orifices, 
exactly opposite the larger ones in the outer wall. Between these 
two walls is a spiral staircase, fi'om the top of which the superin- 
tendent can look into all the yards by a cotip d''ceil. . . . 

The arrangements for a supply of water are admu'able. The 
superintendent said no evil eifeets upon mind or body resulted 
from this system of confinement ; but he did not seem to me very 
fully to have considered these important questions. It is generally 
averred that such confinement lowers the tone of the system, in- 
creases its susceptibiHty to impressions, makes the subject more 
yielding and pliable, and therefore seems to produce amendment, 
and redeem from the power of evil propensities ; but that, when the 
system is re-invigorated by a return to society, when the force of 
the natural stimulants is again applied, the impressions made in a 
state of debility are effaced, the resolutions formed when the appe- 
tites were weak are broken, and the old identity of feeble self- 
restraint and vigorous passions is renewed. 

At Pentonville, prisoners are retained but eighteen months. 
They are then sent to Australia; being di"vdded into three classes, 
according to their behavior here. The first class (that is, those 
whose conduct has been most correct) are admitted to many privi- 
leges, and reheved fi-om many restraints ; the second class occupy 
an intermediate state as to privileges ; the third or worst class are 
sent to work in chains. This holds out the strongest inducements 
to good behavior, and, with the strict surveillance that prevails, 
must make the order of the prison very good. 

Prison discipline, and reformation, which is the highest 
object of prison discipline, was a subject of great interest 
to Mr. Mann, and one upon which he hoped to find time 
to write his views. It is a subject that involves the whole 
theory of morals and religion. If a criminal is led to be- 
lieve — by education, or by the instructions he receives, 
when, for the first time perhaps, he has any opportunity of 
hearing any instraction (that is, after his imprisonment 



188 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

for crime) — that his heinous sin is to mal^e him the sub- 
ject of eternal punishment, and that his relief from it is 
only to be gained by his belief that another being has 
taken upon himself the suffering due to the sinner, he 
will not be likely to have sufficient vitality of faith to 
secure his reformation under subsequent temptation ; 
but if he is made to realize the beneficent idea that in 
each human soul is a recuperative power which he can at 
will exercise for his own reformation, and that his Cre- 
ator is ready to accept his sorrowful repentance at any 
moment when it is sincere, and that he, as well as the 
best educated and the most favored of fortune, has before 
him a future life of endless progress, let his earthly for- 
tunes be happy or not, a season of imprisonment might be 
made indeed a golden hour for him. The first requisite 
of a prison is, doubtless, such physical arrangements as will 
secure health and comfort : the next is such instruction 
as a parent would give to an erring child ; and, in the 
instructor's hands, there is no instrument so powerful as a 
rational^ earnest, and benign inculcation of the vital truths 
of religion ; these vital truths not being found in any creed 
or dogmas, but in the proofs of the love of God shown to 
man by the history of the soul, as exemplified chiefly in 
the character of Christ, " a man tempted like as we are ; " 
for in this alone lies its true power. Instances could be 
quoted from the experience of well-known clergymen 
of our day, among whom I can, from personal knowledge, 
cite the Rev. Edward T. Taylor of Boston, where men who 
had never had an opportunity, because born and educated 
at sea, to hear any religious truth inculcated, yielded very 
soon, with all the strength of their strong natures, to the 
convictions of duty evoked by such heart-preaching — in- 
formal, and without any of the paraphernalia of external 
rites — as men like " Father Taylor " alone are capable of, 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 189 

— men who through the form see the substance of reU- 
gion, and understand the relations of the human soul to it. 
Father Taylor never addressed the sentiment of fear, but 
those of love and honor and self-respect : hence his suc- 
cess within the prison and in the still harder school of the 
world. Such men as Charles Reade (and there are doubt- 
less others, though not yet organized for the work) see 
into the real difficulty of this great department of benevo- 
lence. Our own countrywoman, Miss Dix, has perhaps 
rendered as much service in this labor, though informal- 
ly, as in the one by which she has openly moved the 
world. Her leisure hours, spent in penitentiaries, have 
been fruitful of good, which cannot be measured like her 
efforts for the insane. It is a work for woman ; and, when 
chaplains for prisons are chosen from woman's ranks, we 
may look for a new era in prison-discipline. Is it not 
strange that Mrs. Frye has been so admired, yet so little 
imitated, in this respect ? Mr. Mann often used to say, 
when he heard of women's complaints of having no ca- 
reer but the domestic one (which he thought a great 
sphere if well filled, and by no means limited to the care 
of one's own fireside), that, while the world was sown 
with jails and prisons, he could not understand the 
complaint, except by the fact that the practice of benevo- 
lence does not insure worldly distinction. In this con- 
nection, however, he always felt the difficulty thrown in 
the way by the common formulas of religious belief above 
referred to. A truly enlightened education of the people 
he knew to be the only permanent remedy in this as well 
as other neglected fields of human duty, and he also 
hoped for time to enter into such details. Any subject 
that involved popular theories of religion and morality, in 
their mutual relations, always looked to him like hercu- 
lean labors ; there was so much to be undone before a new 



190 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

beginning could be made. He was too conservative to 
pull down, without endeavoring to reconstruct something 
upon the ruins of fallen idols, yet too radical to leave error 
at peace. 

In the evening, attended a fancy ball at Almack's, given for the 
benefit of the Poles ; at which the company wore the same dresses 
which they wore at the Queen's masked ball. And such dresses ! 
Such caricatures of humanity were enough to make a man call the 
baboons and kangaroos his brethren rather than these. Such an 
immense display of wealth, such pearls and diamonds, and cloth of 
silver and gold, — how would it all put to shame the pretensions 
of our displaying people! About twenty ladies were beautifully 
and tastefully dressed. The money of the others apparently did 
^ not hold out; for their dresses rose but just above the waist. 
Among the men there was not a single good head, — not one that 
argued strength and benevolence : among the women there were 
a few. About seven hundred persons were present. 

June 6. Visited Norwood and Newgate. At Norwood there 
are more than a thousand children sent from London. They are 
the childi-en of parents who are in the London poorhouses. 

Visited Marylebone Workhouse. It contains about eighteen hun- 
dred inmates. They appeared very comfortably situated. Parts of 
the building have been constructed for a veiy long time, and without 
any knowledge of the importance of classification or ventilation. 
Some complaints have lately been made on this subject, and reforms 
ordered. Indeed, those who have the administration of the poor- 
laws of the kingdom — the poor-law commissioners, as they are 
called — seem duly to appreciate the importance of physical arrange- 
ments, and, in this particular, are effecting a great change through- 
out the kingdom. 

The children are taught some of the elementary branches ; the 
boys, some handicraft; the girls, sewiag, knitting, &c. Eighteen 
hundred, — a population of paupers ! Not half of the towns in Mas- 
sachusetts have a population equal to this, inclusive of their whole 
numbers. 

Dined in the evening with the Archbishop of Dublin, with whose 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 191 

noble liberality and catholicity of spirit I was more charmed than 
ever. He spoke again of Ireland, — of the means now in snceess- 
fal operation to educate her people ; more than 300,000 children 
being now in the schools which are under the superintendence of 
the National Board of Education. In alluding to the exclusive 
measures now insisted upon by the Estabhshed Church in regard to 
a national system of education in England, he said, " Suppose I 
should make a great feast, and among my numerous guests there 
should be a Jew : should I compel him to eat pork ? " 

He was full of sportiveuess and anecdote. 

Lord Monteagle and lady were of the party. He is altogether 
the finest-looking nobleman I have seen, with a countenance full of 
the expression of benevolence, and a fair share of intellect, and 
therefore a gentleman with whom the archbishop would be likely 
to sympathize. 

How good a man must have been, to remain so good after all 
the temptations and seductions to exclusiveness under which a high 
dignitary of the Church, like the Archbishop of Dublin, must have 
labored ! . . . 

Visited the famous York Cathedral. ... To me the sight of one ^( 
child educated to understand something of his Maker, and of that 
Maker's works, is a far more glorious spectacle than all the cathe- 
drals which the art of man has ever reared. . . . 

After regaling our eyes on this great pile, we went to the wall 
around the town, said to have been built by the Romans. It is 
three or four miles in extent. It is now in excellent condition. 
We walked nearly round it, and went to the foot of the old castle, 
which has begun to crumble. . . . 

June 10. We left Newcastle in a coach called " Chevy Chase." 
Thus are legends perpetuated. This is natural and agreeable. 
The county of Northumberland presents a very different appear- 
ance from the interior of England. We soon found the fields be- 
ginning to grow much larger, the hedges less frequent, the trees not 
one to ten : and at last we came to wide, open commons, where per- 
]iaps for miles there was no fence by the side of the road ; where 
there had been but very little cultivation, and most of the animals 
were sheep, the houses few, and collected into poor-looking villages. 



192 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

This aspect of the country continued until we came to the Cheviot 
Hills, which divide England from Scotland. Beyond these, the 
cultivation very much improved. As we approached Jedburg, 
situated on the River Jed, the scenery was very picturesque, resem- 
bling in some degree that of Westfield River as seen from the West- 
ern RaUroad or from the old Pontoosuck Turnpike. Jedburg itself 
is a romantic place. Here we saw the ruias of an old cathedral, 
and would most gladly have explored them; but they were at some 
distance, and only twenty minutes were allowed at dinner. 

From Jedburg we went to Dryburg Abbey, the burial-place of 
Sir Walter Scott. Here we wished to stop, but could only enter 
Edinburgh by daylight by going on. From Dryburg to Melrose 
is about two miles. From Melrose to Abbotsford, the residence 

/ of the late Sir Walter, it is three miles. We saw the house which 
he built, the trees which he planted, and the grounds which he 
bought, — those fatal grounds ! — and would gladly have made a 
pilgrimage to them : but we are looking to the future rather than to 
the past ; and that, all things considered, seemed to have the most 
imperative demands upon us. I confess it was a sacrifice for which 
it is not probable that posterity will repay me. 

We rode for many miles along the banks of the Tweed, which are 
fall of beautiful scenery. On this day's journey we first saw the 
Scotch broom, a gaudy yellow flower ; and the heath, which looked 
brown and lifeless, and had not a particle of beauty to ally it to 
. poetry ; and yet the Scotch make it the subject of poetical asso- 
ciations. This is pure amor patricB. The heath looks as if it was 
dead when it came up. 

/ On the way we saw the Duke of Buccleuch's dog-kennels, 
which were much better built, and had a far more comfortable air 
about them, than half the cottages we have seen in England and 
Scotland. 

June 18. During the last week, I have devoted almost my en- 
tire time to visiting the schools of Edinburgh. ... It is said to be 
ascertained, from statistical returns, that not more than one-third of 
the children of Scotland are educated in the parochial schools : the 
rest depend upon private schools, or receive no schooling at all. . . . 
The office of teacher is substantially held for Ufe. He can be 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 193 

disciplined, however, for good cause. Teachers, in general, look for 
promotion to the Church. It is, as a general rule, only in default of 
such promotion that they continue in a school. Many, if not most 
of them, are educated for the Church, and then take a school until 
they can get a living. ... 

Of emulation, roused and inflamed to intensity in these schools, 
I have spoken on many occasions. However one might be disposed 
to regard it in matters purely of an intellectual character, it would 
seem beforehand as if there could be no diiference of opinion re- 
specting it when religioug or moral emotions are to be enkindled in 
the mind. On those momentous themes, the very thought of which 
should make the heart quail and 'the eyes stream with tears, there 
is the same intellectual desire of responding as on a question of 
the multiplication-table, with no more consciousness of the solem- 
nity of the subject treated in the one case than in the other. And 
when I asked the teacher of a school, in which every scholar had 
evidently committed to memory every verse of the Grospels and the 
book of Hebrews, to examine them on some point of social duty 
or morals, to bring out their ideas of conscience, &c., he did not 
seem fully to comprehend my meaning, and requested me to exam- 
ine them myself. In this respect, they were not equal to a class of 
boys in a good school of our own.* 

This teaching the bare doctrines or dogmas of theology, without 
awakening the conscience and purifying the affections, seems like 
teaching anatomy without physiology. It is as necessary that the 
application of the principles of religion to the duties of life, or mo- 
rality, or natural theology, should be inculcated, as the principles 
of scriptural theology. . . . 

The object which has called up the deepest and tenderest asso- 
ciations, far beyond those of any other object seen since I left home, 
was the lowly, humble cottage where Jeanie Deans is said to have- i 
been born. I have seen nothing that affected me so deeply as the 
sight of the residence, with the recollection of the story, of that 
noble girl. 

On Thursday, passed Sterling Castle and the " banks and braes 

* For details concerning Scotch schools, see Seventh Keport of the Secretary 
of the Massachusetts Board of Education. 
13 



194 LITE OP HOEACB MANN. 

of bonnie Doon," and an-ived at night at the east end of Loch Ka- 
trine. In the morning I rose at five, and ascended the beautiful 
hill behind our lodgings, near Loch Achray. Standing at any 
one point, there seemed no path by which the ascent was practicable : 
but seeking my way, step by step, I always found a spot where I 
could plant my foot ; and by diverging a little to the right here, 
and to the left there, — now descending apparently with a retro- 
grade movement in order to turn a crag or reach a safer foot- 
ing, — I at length stood upon the point which from below seemed 
inaccessible. And here I moralized. " It is in this way," thought I, 
" that great and difficult enterprises are accomplished. If one looks 
to the mighty evil to be overcome, or to the great moral renovation 
to be achieved, and thinks of these alone, he may lie down in de- 
spair at the apparent inadequacy of the means for the attainment of 
the end. But if he looks around and about him, and sees what 
good can be done, what is now within his reach and at his com- 
mand, and addi'esses himself with all zeal and industry to do what 
can be done, to take the step next to the one just taken, he will 
gradually yet assuredly advance, and at last will find himself at 
the point of elevation which from below seemed unattainable." 

We saw the launching of a Httle steamboat (the first ever launched 
here) that was intended to ply the waters of Loch Katrine, but 
we were ourselves taken over in a boat rowed by four men. In 
the course of the voyage, one of these said he was a teetotaler, 
and refused to drink any whiskey which was offered to him : so, when 
we stepped ashore, I gave him a double fee for his discipleship. 

The scenery of Loch Lomond is at once beautiful and grand. 
(The scenery of Loch Katrine was obscured by a pelting, blinding 
shower.) It is a place in which to abandon one's self to the 
love of Nature, to become receptive of impressions, and to yield to 
the influence which they make upon the emotive part of our nature. 
Amidst all this, however, I confess my heart often turned to the 
fortunes of the rising generation at home ; and were it not that I 
hoped here to replenish my strength, to enter with renewed vigor 
into their service, I would have preferred to be closeted in narrow 
apartments, working for them, to aU the joy of beholding this mag- 
nificent display. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 195 

Mr. Mann's heart turned to the " rising generation at 
home " too often during this short European excursion. 
Even the little recreation it afforded him to run up moun- 
tains, and sail all day occasionally upon a beautiful lake, 
gave his over-worked brain some relief, though never to 
the point of affording him much or quiet sleep, which was 
the restorer he needed. He " fought all his battles o'er 
again " in the night-watches ; and not even the counsels of 
his wise friend Mr. Combe could persuade him to dismiss 
all thought of labor, even for a few weeks at a time, in 
view of the future advantage. He thought then that his 
hold of life might be very brief ; and his wish to bring his 
plans for the common schools of his country to a certain 
maturity overmastered every consideration of prudence. 
When remonstrated with for thus violating the natural 
laws he so strenuously urged, his only reply was that he 
obeyed a higher law than he violated, and that the benefit 
of the experience he had gained must not be lost to the 
cause for any personal considerations. Finding remon- 
strances to be unavailing, his friends always felt the 
magnetic influence of his ardor such, that they yielded 
the point, and joined their efforts to his to accomplish the 
ends he had in view. But if he had occasionally given 
himself up to the healing influences of the nature he so 
much loved, and which is so admirably adapted to the wants 
of an exhausted system, he might have escaped another 
source of ill health which from this period distressed him 
for many years. It was the tic-douloureux, whose tor- 
tures rendered him nearly frantic, till at last he had a 
whole mouthful of apparently sound teeth extracted, which 
revealed the neuralgic sacs at the roots of three teeth, 
that had been the hidden cause of the malady. His health 
improved from that time, until the exhausting labors of 
the last few years of his life again prostrated him beyond 
recovery. 



196 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

Thursday, June 22. Visited the Normal School at Grlasgow. 
There is nothing peculiar in this school, except that Mr. Stowe, the 
principal, discards emulation as one of the incitements to study. 

In the Royal Asylum for the Insane, the plan of common donni- 
tories is introduced. One room is designed for four suicidal par 
tients. It is said they will keep each other from committing an 
injury. 

Dr. Hutchinson, the principal, says it answers an excellent pur- 
pose to place the melancholic and the boisterously gay in the same 
apartments : the excesses of each are counteracted by those of the 
other. This seems rational. 

Under the protection of Capt. Miller, the Superintendent of Po- 
lice, I visited some of the worst districts of Glasgow. The condi- 
tion of the poor is inconceivably wretched in some of these quarters. 
In one place, we passed under an arch of ten or twelve feet ; then 
we came to a small open square, perhaps six feet, where all the 
refuse of many famihes was thrown. Through this we went up a 
narrow stairway into a room not more than ten feet square, wr.ere 
were three beds and two sick women, one groaning as if in agony. 
Here were all the furniture, goods, and chattels of the family. 

In another place, we had to contract ourselves into a height of not 
more than four feet to enter the low door. We descended a long 
step for this, passed under a covered way where we could not stand 
upright by more than a foot, and entered a miserable room, about 
as large as the one just described, but not higher than my shoul- 
ders ; and on the front side was the only window, of six panes of 
glass of about six inches square. Along the street into which this 
window looked ran a brook, which sometimes rose and overflowed, 
and filled up these apartments almost to the ceiling. The water of 
the brook was exceedingly muddy and fetid. This district covered 
acres, in which there was notliing but a repetition of the same dread- 
ful scenes. Children abounded here. Almost every female old 
enough to hold a child had one in her arms. This place of abomi- 
nation was screened from public view by rows of fine houses and 
shops on some of the principal streets of the city. 

Visited the old Cathedral of Glasgow, and heard the quota of 
legends that belongs to all such places. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 197 

Dr. Nicol, the astronomer, showed me very beautiful astronomi- m 
cal instruments. The transit instrument cost £800. Here, too, I 
saw a very beautiful anemometer, made by Mr, Osier of Birming- 
ham. It records, or rather delineates, the course and intensity of the 
wind. A rain-gauge is also connected with it, by which not only the 
quantity of the fall of rain is ascertained, but exactly at what time 
it rained fastest, and how much the fastest. The cost of the whole 
is £40. 

In the University of Grlasgow is a statue of Sir James Watt. He . 
was a native of Greenock, a poor boy, and at sixteen years of age 
came to Glasgow in search of his fortune. He used to stand at the 
great ai'ched entrance to the square of the University, and sell toys 
of his own construction to the students. As he obtained means, he 
extended his traffic : but, being interfered with by members of the 
city corporation for exercising a trade, the university, which was also 
a corporation, took him under its protection ; and here his genius 
began to develop itself. An original model of a steam-engine — 
the veiy one on which he first exerted his inventive powers — 
stands by the side of his statue. How rude and feeble, compared 
with those beautiful and mighty instruments which have succeeded 
to it, this model appears ! 

In Scotland, there is a society, incorporated by act of Parliament, 
" for the relief of the widows and children of burgh or parochial 
schoolmasters." This society was incorporated early in the present 
century. All burgh and parochial schoolmasters are, ex officio, 
members of it. Each member is obliged to pay a certain sum an- 
nually towards the funds ; and, in consideration of this payment, his 
widow, if he leaves one, and her children, if children sixrvive her, 
are entitled to draw an annuity from the funds. It is optional with 
the members to pay more or less within certain prescribed limits ; 
but the amount of the annuity to which these rejDresentatives are 
entitled is determined by the amount of the annual subscription. 

There are many details of minor importance respecting this cor- 
poration, for which one must look to the act of Parliament and to 
the by-laws and regulations of the society. No widow or family 
can draw more than £25 a year. 

The funds of this society are now rather more than £50,000 : 



198 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

total accumulated fund or capital on the 16th September, 1842, 
£54,297. 13s. U. 

Taking a broad and statesmanlike view of the subject, it is 
clear that it would have been far better to give to schoolmasters 
such a competent salary, that each one, by prudence and good 
management, could not only support himself during his term of 
public service, but could also have a competency for his family. 
The whole scheme is an attempt to mitigate the evils of poverty, 
which the penuriousness of the schemers first inflicts. It is not, 
like a common insurance, a pro-vision against casualties, or unfore- 
seen or uncontrollable disasters ; but it compels each one, however 
poor or unfortunate, or however small his salary may be, to contrib- 
ute to a fund, the income of which is also to be divided among all, 
merely on the contingency of leaving a widow or an orphan, — not 
on the contiug-ency of actual want, nor in case of actual want, on its 
happening through misfortune, or the sufferer's own improvidence. 

Hamburg. . . . This was once a fortress ; and walls were 
erected all round the town, except on the side where it lies upon 
the Elbe. The ramparts are now demolished ; and, where they once 
stood, beautifal winding walks are laid out, and the grounds are 
planted with various forest and flowering trees and garden-flowers 
of many kinds, stretching outward into the walks. The whole is 
open to the public, and the truant boy from the streets as well as 
the day laborer and the people of taste have free access here ; and 
yet a tree or shrab is never injured, a flower is never plucked. 
Suppose the whole of Boston Common to be laid out like a gentle- 
man's garden, the fences to be removed, and the whole thrown open 
to every one who might choose to enter, whether from the city or 
from the countiy : how long would the walks remain uninjured, the 
trees and plants unmutilated, the flowers unplucked? This is 
certainly a lesson to republican America. 

Magdeburg is a walled city and fortified town. It contains 
about thirty thousand inhabitants. Its main street, called Breite 
Weg, runs through the city from north to south. At each end is 
one of the gates, or entrances ; and before each gate are very exten- 
sive fortifications. Those at the south gate must cover five hundred 
acres or more. The fortifications are ramparts and moats, with cov- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 199 

ered ways, or subterranean passages, by which those on the outer 
walls, if driven in, can pass securely behind another and another ; 
and there are still other barriers, I know not how many. 

The sight of the whole produced a most painful impression on my 
mind. What a height of honor, of excellence, and of happiness, ^ 
might mankind have attained, if a thousandth, or even a millionth, 
part of the wealth, and the time, and the talent, and the energy, 
which have been expended for then- oppression and debasement, had 
been spent wisely in improving their condition ! 

Berlin. — The institution for the deaf and dumb surpasses that 
at Magdeburg. . . . Almost all the public schools in Berlin were 
closed for the summer vacation the morning after our arrival. By 
the favor of some very kind people, we obtained access to several 
private schools ; and here we saw excellent specimens of teaching. 

The curiosities or ' ' wonders ' ' of Berlin are many and very interest- 
ing. The Museum, the collection of two thousand specimens of 
art from Pompeii and Herculaneum ; the fountain in the Lust-garten ; 
the Arsenal; the Palace, in which is the Kunst Cabinet; the library 
of five hundred thousand volumes; the Thier-garten, &c., — are 
certainly things well worthy the attention of any one who travels 
for sight^seeing. 

July 16. At Potsdam we find the schools still open, and have 
seized with great avidity upon the opportunity of visiting them. 
With them all we are highly pleased. 

We have visited Sans Souci, the palace built by Frederick 
the Great. In the New Palace* is one of the most tasteful and 
splendid of rooms, — a spacious apartment, more than a hundred feet 
in length and sixty in width, with pillars at each end so as to bring 
the central part into the form of a square. This room has a most 
beautifully variegated marble floor. Large and splendid figures 
are inlaid, radiating from the centre outward. But the most 
beautiful idea of the whole is the formation of the walls — which 
resemble stalactites — and the pillars. These are covered with 
shells of all kinds that fishes have ever lived in, or with specimens 
of mineralogy, tastefully arranged. The present castellan, who is 

* This palace is said to have been built by Frederick after the seven-years' war, 
to prove that he had some money left. 



200 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

an old gentleman of taste, has introduced this feature ; and kings 
and potentates, as well as lesser people, send him specimens from 
every part of the world, so that the collection is ever increasing. 
Large chandeliers are suspended from the ceiling ; and, when 
lighted up, the scene must be brilliant beyond the description of 
fable. ... In the Old Palace at Potsdam, and in the new one 
near Sans Souci, we saw the favorite rooms of Frederick the 
G-reat, his library, tables, writing-desks, and various other parapher- 
nalia. Some of this has been preserved as nearly as possible in the 
same condition in which it was left by him. It is said that a clock, 
V which he had always wound up with his own hand, stopped at the 
very minute of his death ; and it has been left in that condition ever 
since. Here, as in other palaces, was a perfect wilderness of pic- 
tures. The rooms of state were as rich as gold and carving and 
painting could make them. England's palaces do not compare 
with them. In many instances, the eye was pained with the profu- 
sion of those things which were intended for its delight. 

At Charlottenberg we saw a very beautiful mausoleum, or small 
temple, erected by the late king to the memory of his wife, the 
lamented Louise. Here is a statue, — recumbent, — larger than 
life, of the queen, by Ranch. The building was very simple in its 
architecture, and very rich in its materials ; and the only unpleasant 
circumstance pertaining to our visit there was that the keeper 
should be allowed to take money from visitors, for the king, for 
showing the monument of his deceased mother. 

At Potsdam we became acquainted with Von Turk, a man long 
celebrated for his charitable deeds. He has erected several orphan- 
houses ; and is now at the head of one, to the support of which he is 
said to appropriate his whole income. 

One of the most interesting sights in Potsdam is that of the 
Royal Orphan House, founded by Frederick the Great. It contains a 
thousand children, — all the children of soldiers. They seem col- 
lected there as a monument of the havoc which war makes of men. 
They are instructed in all the rudiments of knowledge and in music, 
and are practised in gymnastic exercises to a remarkable point of 
perfection. They performed feats which I have never seen equalled, 
except by a company of professed circus-riders or rope-dancers. 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 201 

Here we saw a tenible an-ay of feather-beds, a hundred and forty 
in one room ; and no other covering, in summer weather, but a 
feather-bed weighing fifteen or twenty pounds ! 

Halle, July 21. In the Franke Institute are three thousand 
children under the superintendence of Mr. Niemeyer. The orphans 
compose but a small part of this number. It was founded in the 
eighteenth century, and is said to be the father of all the orphan- 
houses which have been erected since in Germany. The teachers 
were all of a very high order, — intelligent, benevolent-looking men. 
The institute is a quarter of a mile long, six stories liigh, several 
apartments thick, biiilt round an oblong court-yard. The statue of 
the founder stands in one of the courts before the director's house, 
with his hands on two children's heads, and the motto on the pedestal, 
"He trusted in Grod." . . . We also visited a poor-school, where the 
children behaved much better than they dressed (I have seen schools, 
in some countries, where the children dressed much better than they 
behaved) ; also a school for very poor children, where they are 
taken care of while their parents are at work ; and a school of a 
dozen or fifteen large scholars, who had been examined for confirma- 
tion, but had failed in consequence of their ignorance of the Bible. 
Here they were collected, and put under the care of an instructor, 
who was endeavoring to give them, to commit to memory, so many 
verses of the Bible as would authorize their being confirmed, avow- 
ing their belief in the Lutheran creed, and partaking the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper. They certainly were as desperate-looking 
subjects as I ever saw ; but they could obtain no clerkship, appren- 
ticeship, or other employment, unless confirmed. . . . All the incon- 
veniences and physiological wrongs of Grerman schools find a com- 
pensation in the character of the teachers. Those whom I have met 
in the schools, if assembled together, would form the finest collection ■U' 
of men I have ever seen, — full of intelligence, dignity, benevo- 
lence, kindness, and bearing ia their countenances and demeanor 
the impress of conscientiousness and fidelity to their trust. In our 
own schools, the employment of female teachers has been frequently 
advocated ; and one of the strong arguments in favor of their ser- 
vices has been, that they were more kind, affectionate, forbearing, 
and encoui-aging than the other sex. In Grermany this argument 



V 



202 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

would not be understood ; or, rather, the fact on which the opinion 
is founded with us does not exist there. As yet, I have never 
seen an instance of harshness or severity : all is kind, encouraging, 
animatmg, sympathizing. This last is true to such a degi-ee as 
would seem almost ludicrous with us. A German teacher evinces 
the greatest joy at the success of a pupil in answering a question; 
seems sorrowful, and even deeply moved with grief, if he fails. 
When a question has been put to a young scholar, which he strove 
and struggled to answer, I have seen a look of despair in the teacher ; 
but if the little wrestler with difficulties overcame them, and gave 
the right answer, the teacher would seize and shake him ardently 
by the hand to felicitate him upon his triumph ; and where the 
difficulty has been really formidable, but the exertion on the scholar's 
part triumphant, I have seen the teacher seize the pupil in his arms 
and embrace him, and caress him with parental fondness, as if he 
were not able to contain the joy which a successfal effort had given 
him. At another time, I have seen a teacher actually clap his 
hands with delight at a bright reply. And all this has been done 
so naturally, so unaffectedly, as to excite no other feeling in the 
residue of the children than that of a desire to win the same favor 
for themselves. 

Dresden, July 29. . . . We have visited the galleiy of paint- 
ings several times, and found a collection vastly superior to any 
thing seen since leaving England. Without being much of an ama- 
teur, I must say that there is true delight in looking at such chefs 
d^ceuvre of genius; and, if other things were as they should be, it 
would give unalloyed pleasure to see them. But when we reflect 
how the arts have flourished amid an immeasurable extent of mise- 
ry, and that those who have cultivated them most munificently by 
their patronage and their wealth have been most regardless of the 
welfare of then fellow-men, it throws a cloud over the brightest 
pictures which the pencil of the artist ever painted. 

Aug. 2. Visited the Green Rooms, as they are called, of the 
Palace. Here are collected the wonders of Art and the riches of 
Nature. . . . The regalia of the Saxon kings is one of the richest in 
the world. A few years ago, it was mortgaged for five million 
dollars ; and this was supposed to be only about half its value. Oh, 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 20S 

how these look to a philanthropic eye, that knows at what an ex- 
pense of human happiness they have been acquired ! 

Auff. 3. Saxony has a constitution, and a representative body 
of two houses. The constitution was granted by the king in 1831. 
The upper house, where the ministers have a seat, that they may 
answer questions and make explanations, &c., during the debates, 
seemed, when I visited it, to be really a deliberative and a dignified 
body. ... A representative assembly in Saxony, with Austria on 
one side, and Prussia on the other, is like a bit of good ham in an 
otherwise miserable sandwich. 

In a burgher school near Dresden, I heard, for the first time in 
Glermany, a lesson on the constitution of the State. The teaching 
was extemporaneous ; and the teacher took occasion to contrast the 
excellence of their present condition, when they have laws made by 
representatives elected by themselves, not only with the condition 
of unlimited monarchies around them, but with their own condition 
in former times. 

From Dresden we visited the tomb of Moreau. The monument 
is very cheap and simple. It marks the spot where he fell. At the 
great battle of Dresden, in 1813, between Bonaparte and the allies, 
it is related that Bonaparte saw a small body of men assembled 
on a little elevation, a mile and a half or two miles from his head- 
quarters, and also that couriers were constantly passing to and from 
them. He immediately ordered one of his batteries, consisting of 
twelve guns, to load, and elevate for that spot, and, at the word of 
command, to fire simultaneously. This order was executed. The 
group at which the guns were directed consisted of Moreau, of the 
Emperor Alexander, the king, and others. The ball which struck 
Moreau took off his leg on one side, passed through the body of the 
horse, and took oif the other leg. Bonaparte said if he had fired a 
single shot into such a company, as most men would have done, he 
should only have alarmed them, and committed no execution ; but 
something was to be hoped from a dozen guns. 

In Leipsic, Mr, Mann and Mr. Combe had unexpectedly 
met. Mr. Combe had been peremptorily sent to Germa- 
ny, and condemned to silence, by his physicians, on ac- 



204 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

count of an attack upon his lungs ; and the two friends 
were put under protest : but they disregarded every pro- 
hibition, and pied a pied, or on some pleasant excursion, 
they talked solidly from morning till night during the 
few weeks they remained together. In spite of the ap- 
prehensions of friends, Mr. Combe improved every day. 
Sometimes, taldng one horse, one would literally " walk 
on the horse," as the French say, while the other walked 
on foot, still talking, till Mr. Combe had imparted all 
his observations on the country, with which he was familiar 
by frequent and long residences, and till they had talked 
far into the future as well as into the past. At last, time 
was no more for them ; and they reluctantly parted, never 
to meet again on earth, except in the affections, and in 
such measure of intellectual companionship as correspon- 
dence by letter could give. Both were men capable ^of 
deep and abiding friendship ; and the brilliancy of the one 
was a fine counterpoise to the gravity of the other, each 
being endowed with logical power to satisfy the other's de- 
mands for that quality of intellect, without which neither 
could enjoy interchange of thought with any one. 

Aug: 4. We started, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Combe, on 
an excursion to Saxon Switzerland, as it is called, — a region about 
twenty-five miles east of Dresden. 

We went first to Pima to visit a lunatic asylum of great re- 
pute. It contains rather more than three liundred subjects. The 
buildiQg is most beautifully situated on a very high eminence rising 
abruptly from the right bank of the Elbe. It entirely overlooks 
the whole town, and would do so if it were a hundred feet lower. 
It was an ancient castle ; and, having been built expressly for a gar- 
rison, it may well be supposed that the internal arrangement is 
ill adapted to the purposes of a hospital. We heard beautiful 
music, some pieces of which were perfoi-med by the inmates, who 
appeared to be well treated, and as happy as such sufferers can be. 
Apart from the main building is a separate establishment for the 



LIFE OP' HORACE MANN. 205 

convalescent, — an excellent arrangement. The hospital was estab- 
lished in 1811, when the king had supreme power, and it was not 
necessary to enlighten the people to secure obedience to the com- 
mands of the State. How different is this from the case in Mas- 
sachusetts ! Our hospital depended for its support upon the good 
will of the people, and therefore it was necessary to enlighten the 
people. Annual reports are not published from this German hos- 
pital ; but in Massachusetts the people were enlightened in various 
ways, particularly by the preparation and publication of extensive 
reports. These, being freely distributed, have produced an entire 
revolution in public opinion upon the subject of insanity. Proba- 
bly far less has been done in the course of thnty years, in enlighten- 
ing the minds of the people of Saxony on this subject, than has been 
done in Massachusetts within ten years. 

When this country was occupied by Bonaparte, in 1813, he 
wished to station a detachment of soldiers at Pima. Accordingly, he 
despatched orders to the superintendent to have the hospital cleared 
in eight hours. The insane were sent to the neighboring church, 
and the troops occupied their dwelhng. 

On our way to Schandau, we passed the Fortress of Konigstein, — 
a fortress which has never yet been taken. On all sides but one, it 
is inaccessible to any thing that has gravity. Opposite to it is the 
Fortress of Lilienstein, which is almost inacessible on all sides. Yet 
Napoleon caused a road to be made for a considerable distance over 
a before impassable tract of country, and thi'ee cannons to be carried 
to the top of this bluff, in the hope of throwing his shot into Konig- 
stein ; but the distance was too great, and therefore the attempt un- 
successful. 

Lilienstein is a beautiful, symmetrical eminence, rising from the 
level of the surrounding country ; and shot up through the centre 
of this is a tremendous mass of sandstone, leaving a surface, at a vast 
height from the region beneath, of an extraordinarily striking char- 
acter. It is more than a hundred and fifty feet higher than its 
fellow, and is a more imposing object ; but Konigstein is situated 
immediately on the left bank of the Elbe, and serves to command 
that channel both into and out of the heart of the country. 

On Saturday, the 5th, we set out for Saxon Switzerland; pro- 



206 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

ceeding a number of miles in a carriage, when we were obliged to 
alight, and either be carried in a litter, ride on horseback, or go on 
foot. The scenery of this region of country is most peculiar. In one 
place, a perpendicular wall of rock from three to five hundred feet 
high encloses an area of two miles in diameter. The rock is sand- 
stone, and generally appears in thin layers (from one to ten feet in 
thickness) , although sometimes there is no visible division horizontally 
for a hundred feet ; but vertically they are all split, as it were, into 
pillars, the rifts being generally very naiTOw ; and sometimes the 
clefts cross each other at right angles, dividing the mass into small 
squares if we consider them horizontally, but into immense parallel- 
ograms when considered vertically. The summit of each pillar has 
been worn by time, so that it presents the form of a rounded cap, or 
dome. The highest point in this vicinity is that of the Wiaterwalde, 
seventeen hundred feet above the level of the sea, and commanding 
a view of the whole region ; and when the grandeur of the features 
and the wild natural aspect are contrasted with the cultivated fields 
which lie to the east, and with the quiet flowing of the Elbe as it is 
seen towards the west, the scene is picturesque and imposing in the 
highest degree. For pai-ticulars of sites and wonders, the guide- 
books must be consulted ; but no one can have any adequate idea 
of the face of Saxony, who does not visit this miniature of Switzer- 
land. The best route is that from Chandau to the Kuhstall first, 
and back by the Elbe. 

On Monday, the 7th, I visited the two Chambers again, and 
was struck with the order and sobriety of the members of each. 
The lower as well as the upper house sits uncovered, and the mem- 
bers all leave their hats and overcoats in an anteroom. In the 
lower house there is a democratic party, or a party contending for 
more privileges. Last winter, they made a strong effort to carry a 
measure for the publicity of criminal trials, and the removal of 
restrictions from the press. 

To show how much the constitution is valued, it may be re- 
marked, that in Leipsic the day of its anniversary is a hoUday in all 
the public schools. 

In the evening we were invited to the house of a Mr. de Krause, 
a pleasant gentleman, who, with his family, spoke very good English. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 207 

He told me that all the governments of Germany, excepting Austria 
and Prussia alone, had constitutions and representative assemblies. 

We made the acquaintance to-day of a Mr. Noel, a cousin of 
Lady Byron. He is an English gentleman, who married a Bohe- 
mian lady, and lives at Ispilitz. He assured me that this country 
is working its way rapidly towards liberal institutions. Even in 
Bohemia, where a sort of parliament is assembled thrice a year to 
register the will of the king, — it being so much a matter of form, 
that the sessions last but a single day, — even here a spirit of in- 
quiry is aroused, and for the last two years the right had been ex- 
ercised of asking some questions in reference to the use of moneys 
granted to the king. At the coming session, he said he knew that 
this inquiry was to be i-enewed and insisted upon. Thus Ught is 
dawning upon the midnight of Austrian despotism. 

He told me that education is very general in Austria, but that it 
is very inferior, and that government means to keep it within its 
present limits. A number of private gentlemen, last year, desired 
to contribute the means, and erect a school in Prague for the pi'epara- 
tion of teachers ; but, on making application to the government for 
liberty to do so, they were refused. Yet, even in Austria, a man 
is not allowed to teach until he has served an apprenticeship as an 
assistant school-teacher for a year or more. 

To-day, also, I was introduced to the Hof-prediger Ammon, a 
Cathohc priest, the keeper of the king's conscience. I found him 
a most delightfal man ; full of generosity ; a noble figure, fine 
head, the most charming expression of countenance ; and, when any 
thing was said that particularly interested or pleased him, he would 
seize the speaker by the hand, and evince the liveliness of his satis- 
faction by a hearty shake. He inquired very particularly about 
the Germans in America, — their civil, social, and political condition; 
and exhibited the warmest interest in every thing that concerned the 
welfare of man. If such a man can grow up under the influences 
of Catholicism, what would he be under a nobler dispensation ? 
He spoke of Bohemia, which is Catholic, with great regard, and 
said that the school-teachers who came from there had more practi- 
cal skill, though they were not so theoretically conversant with 
their duty as those of Prussia and Saxony. 



208 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

We have met with but very few beggars in Prussia and Saxony ; 
not so many in all as I have seen in a single day in London. But 
when, in making the tour of Saxon Switzerland, we entered Bohe- 
mia, we encountered more beggars in an hour than we had seen be- 
fore in a month. Indeed, the road was almost thronged with them; 
and I think they must all have heard the story of the unfortunate 
woman who meant to succeed by perseverance, — by worrying, if 
not by exciting compassion. 

Eifurt was formerly a Saxon city, but was transferred to Pi-ussia 
by the Holy (or, more properly speaking, the Unholy) Alliance. 
We called immediately on Director Thilo, to whom we had an intro- 
duction. After visitiug schools, we went to the monastery where 
Luther translated the New Testament; saw the pulpit where he 
preached, and the cell which he occupied. This is the celebrated 
cell of Luther at Erfui-t. Here is shown the very inkstand out of 
. which he wrote, — a large, coarse, wooden box about three inches 
long, five inches wide, and six inches deep. That box moved the 
world. How many sceptres must be added together to get the 
emblem or the remembrances of such power 1 We saw his first 
translation of the New Testament ; specunens of his handwriting, 
as well as that of 3Ielanchthon, which are preserved in a glass case, 
and are certainly not models of calligraphy. In this cell it was 
that Luther had those strivings which he held to be contests with 
the Devil ; and so completely did his imagination triumph over his 
senses, that he supposed the Devil appeared to him, and tempted 
him, face to face. In the cell, upon the wall, is shown the spot 
J. made by his inkstand when he hurled it into the face of his Satanic 
Majesty. This was certainly a very intelligent hint to the intruder ; 
and, if his complexion were a matter of any consequence to him, it 
may be presumed he did not expose himself a second time. 

From Erfurt to Eisenach. Visited, with Director Schraid, the 
schoolhouses of Eisenach, one of which is new and quite elegant, 
but constructed without the shghtest reference to its being inhabited 
by breathing animals. Mr. Schmid is a man of the highest nervous 
temperament, and of great mental activity. He took us to an exam- 
ination of a private school, where two fine-looking teachers were in 
turn examining a class of about thirty girls. Here the idea recurred 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 209 

to me, but more forcibly than ever before, what a disproportion be- 
tween the amount of thought and of talent devoted to the cause 
of education here and in America. 

Visited the Schloss of Wartberg, where Luther hid himself when 
he fled from Worms, and where also, it is said, he translated his 
Bible. Here the cell which he occupied is shown, and another 
place on the wall where he flung his inkstand at the Devil. Which 
is the true scene of that rencounter, I have no means of knowing ; 
but according to all traditions, wherever it might be, the Devil came 
ofi" second-best. 

Saw the cathedral where the emperors were formerly chosen and 
crowned, and the present Town House where they repaired to dine. 
In the gi'eat dining-hall of the Town House, at the ends and sides, 
there are forty-five niches, with pictures, in each, of the whole 
series of German emperors, from the tenth century down to the 
present, when the line came to an end. I was told that great 
care had been taken to obtain these likenesses ; and a rascallier- 
looking set of fellows one would not desire to see out of a state 
prison. 

While visiting the Cathedral, I fell in with my friend Dr. Howe, 
whom I was more glad to see than I can express. The meeting 
was purely accidental. I should like to have Babbage calculate the 
chances that two atoms like Dr. Howe and myself, floating about 
in the atmosphere of all Europe, would come in contact with each 
other. 

Aug. 19. At Schwalbach we dined, and at Sehlangen we re- 
mained over night. . . . These great watering-places are in the 
Duchy of Nassau. . . . The schools here seem to be very well 
managed, the teachers competent; and here, as elsewhere, nothing 
is wanting but freedom. But is it not a reproach to freedom when 
men who are free act less wisely for themselves than despots act for 
their subjects 1 

Darmstadt. ... In speaking with the director of the city schools 
here about the regularity of attendance, he said they did not know 
that there was any other way : the children were born with the in- 
nate idea of going to school. Our school registers and abstracts - 



14 



210 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

■will show that our children are very far from having any such in- 
stinct. 

Aug. 26. Came to Cai*lsruhe, or Charles's Rest. It is said, 
that, in the early part of the last century, Prince Charles was 
travelling through this part of his dominions, when, sitting down 
to rest under a tree, he conceived the idea of founding a city from 
that centre. He laid out thirty-two roads from that point, like the 
radii of a chcle, corresponding with the thirty-two points of the 
compass. One-half the area laid out is still forest. The only 
stream upon which the city is built is about large enough for one 
duck with her brood to swim in, and it has no natural advantages 
whatever. It stands here solely to gratify a selfish whim, and is 
upheld by being the I'csidence of the Grand Duke and the garrison 
of a few thousand of his soldiers. At a short distance to the west 
flows the Rhine. Such are the effects of folly when united with 
power. Berlin is another example of the same thing. Carlsruhe 
has provided very liberally for the education of its children. There 
is a polytechnic school, in which the subjects taught are very inter- 
esting, and have a close relation with practical hfe. 

Sept. 3. I remained at Baden during the whole of the past 
week, and tried to drown disease out of my system as people drown 
a woodchuck out of his hole ; but I found that disease had a 
stronger hold than health, and, therefore, that I was daily drowning 
out the latter instead of the former. Finding that I was growing 
worse so fast that there would be small chance to gi'ow worse much 
longer, I abandoned all hope and water at the same time, and 
hastened away. 

At Baden I visited the remains of the old castle, which are stu- 
pendous. In its walls there is an ouUie where prisoners were 
immured, to be forgotten by the world. 

In the new castle I also visited some honible dungeons, — a 
descent below the surface of the earth, and then winding passages 
through eiglit or ten cells of solid walls ; and, last of all, a dungeon, 
into which those condemned, or those only suspected, were let down 
through a trap-door to receive a horrid punishment, perhaps to die 
a lingering death. In a passage-way adjoining the prison was a 
vault of unknown depth, over which was placed a trap-door, and by 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 211 

the side of the door an image of the Virgin Mary. This image the 
condemned prisoner was requested to kiss; but, the moment he 
approached it, the door fell, and he was precipitated to the bottom, 
where were placed large wheels stuck full of sharp-pointed and 
sharp-edged knives, that, by their revolutions, cut him to pieces. 
One would think that ghosts would dwell in such a house, if any- 
where; and that no king could enjoy the honors of royalty who 
inherited blood from such ancestors. . . . 

At Bingen, also, I saw an old castle which had its trap-door and 
dungeon a la mode. . . . From Bingen we came to Coblentz. Here 
the Rhine passes through what is called the Rhine-gau, — a kind 
of scenery wliich cannot be described ; or, if describable, the best 
description may be found in " Childe Harold." 

In Coblentz the greater part of the people are Catholics. I 
heard a priest of the Catholic Church give a religious lesson to the 
children. A part of it consisted of an explanation of the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper, and particularly of transubstantiation. He 
said, if Christ could turn water into wine, then why, not turn wine 
into blood, and bread into flesh ? — and I am sure I could not tell 
him why one was not as easy as the other. The childi-en were 
obliged to sit for an hour, with their hands placed together in front, 
and hear this nonsense. They seemed uneasy and miserable enough. 
I went into the church, heard the mummeries, saw the genuflexions, 
and the sprinkling with holy water. The quantity of water did not 
seem to be material ; for, when two women went out together, I saw 
one of them dip the tip of her finger in the holy copper kettle, and 
the other then touched the tip of her finger to the tip of the wetted 
one, and both passed on. I am inclined to believe that such a 
homoeopathic dose answered the same purpose as taking an entire 
bath. 

Cologne. — The Dom Church is one of the grandest structures I 
ever saw. On the top of the great tower is still standing the huge 
crane by which the heavy blocks of stone were raised. The church 
not being completed when first built, this was left to be further 
used, and so remained since the thirteenth century. At one time 
it was taken down ; but, soon after, the town was visited by a 
furious thunder-storm, by which the inhabitants were tembly 



212 LIFE OP HORACE MANN, 

frightened, and which they attributed to the removal of the crane 
aforesaid. Whereupon it was re-instated by acclamation; but 
whether it has since kept off all thunder-storms, as in duty bound, 
I know not. 

This is all the notice of the Cathedral of Cologne, that 
miracle of art and beauty, which appears in Mr. Mann's 
hurried journal ; but, although such structures generally 
awakened more painful than pleasurable feelings in him, 
lie was overcome by this one so far as to linger round it, 
and revisit it, and do homage to its wondrous beauty and 
its miraculous proportions, as long as he staid in Cologne. 

The Church of St. Ursula has nothing in its architecture to 
attract notice : but it is remarkable for being a place of more bones 
than Golgotha ; for that, if we take the account strictly, was only a 
place of skulls, whereas St. Ursula has all the varieties in the whole 
skeleton. In building the church, large niches, or holes, were left 
in the walls; and these have been filled with dead women's bones, 
as the tradition goes : but probably no scientific physiologist or 
comparative anatomist has ever examined them to see whether they 
were not bones of men or monkeys. The tradition is, that ten 
thousand vngins were put to death for allegiance to their vows of 
chastity, and that these bones belong to the said virgins. In the 
choir, and around the altar, about fifteen feet from the floor, are 
twenty glass cases, set into the main wail of the building. These 
cases are divided into twenty-four compartments; and from behind 
each little pane of the glass looks out, or rather grins out, a skull. 
Twenty times twenty-four is four hundred and eighty. No doubt, 
some churchyard was robbed to obtain these. But here, also, is 
said to be the skull of St. Ursula herself; and in this church, or in 
some other iu the same town, is also the skull of St. Peter, and the 
skulls of the three wise men who came from the east at the birth of 
the Saviour. 

Holland. — Here is a society for promoting the public good, 
whose headquarters are at Amsterdam, with branches in all the 
principal cities. It numbers forty thousand members. It was 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 213 

commenced in 1784 by a Baptist clergyman. It did a gi-eat deal 
for the public schools before the year 1806, when the government 
took them under its protection. Since that time, great improve- 
ments in the education of the people have taken place. 

Holland is famous for its benevolent institutions. Amsterdam 
alone has twenty-three hospitals, alms-houses, and charitable founda- 
tions of various kinds. It is said that when some one, in conversa- 
tion with Charles II. , prognosticated speedy ruin to the city from 
the meditated attack of Louis XIV. 's armies, Charles, who was 
well acquainted with the country by a residence in it, replied, 
" I am of opinion that Providence will preserve Amsterdam, if it 
were only for its great charity to the poor. ' ' I called on a vener- 
able old Quaker gentleman in Amsterdam, a member of a society 
for the improvement of prisons and prisoners. He said he could 
not introduce me to the prison, and would not if he could; for it 
was too bad to he seen. 

A deputation from Holland is now in England, examining the 
Pentonville and other prisons, with a view to the erection of a new 
one. The Quaker gentleman is in favor of the Pennsylvania system, 
with some modifications of the rigors of that system. 

In the evening, we came to Haarlem. 

Sept. 12. Tuesday. By the politeness of M, Johannes Miiller, 
we had a card for Mr. K. Sybrandi, a Baptist clergyman, who was 
as civil as possible to us. With him we visited many schools. 

Mr. Sybrandi was once a religious teacher at the deaf and dumb 
school in Groningen. He told me that he had great difficulty in 
giving to the children any just apprehensions of God ; that the am- 
biguities of the language were such that he was liable to give erro- 
neous impressions, which he did not himself discover till afterwards, 
when it was too late to remove all the influences that had sprung 
from them. He told an anecdote of giving them a lesson in refer- 
ence to the divine prerogative of pardon. The verb which, in the 
Dutch language, signifies " to pardon," has a double meaning, 
signifying also " to poison." He had told the children, that, under 
certain conditions, God pardoned all sinners ; but one pupil under- 
stood him that the enumerated conditions were those under which 
God poisoned all sinners. 



214 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

The pupils at Groningen are tauglit to speak with the lips ; and 
signs are not only disused, but discouraged. As illustrative of the 
perfect manner in which they succeeded in speaking, he said an 
anecdote was told of a visitor who went through the institution, hear- 
ing the conversation between the teachers and the pupils, and when 
he had seen all the school, and his guide came to a pause, turned to 
him, and told him that it was not those, but the deaf and dumb, 
whom he liad come to see. I cannot but believe that there is some- 
thing of exaggeration in this. I have seen none who could not be 
easily and instantaneously distinguished from a perfectly organized 
individual ; and yet it is not without foundation, for the deaf and 
dumb can be taught to speak in an intelligible manner. 

. . . The children whom we have seen in the Dutch public 
schools have been very well behaved. Their organization is widely 
different from that of the German children. They have far more 
self-esteem and firmness, and I think also more destructiveness; and 
this seems to accord with the national character. 

. . . We went to Leyden from the Hague. I felt a curiosity to 
see this town, because it was for a time the residence of some of the 
Pilgrim Fathers, who were driven from England by the persecutions 
of the church and government there. 

I have often been at Plymouth, in my native State, and looked 
out from the shore eastward, as it were to see them coming, for 
freedom's sake, to a strange and inhospitable shore. Here I looked 
westward to see them departing ; and it seemed as if my sphit could 
follow them on their desolate course, — a path which was illumined 
only by the light of duty, and in which they were upheld only 
by the love of truth. I found in this beautiful town no memorials 
of theu- residence. No monument marked the spot whence they 
departed, no antiquarian knew the place where they resided. Not 
even one of their descendants, whom I visited, knew any thing about 
them, or felt any interest in them. Even in Plymouth, art has ob- 
literated all vestiges of their footsteps ; for the spot on which they 
first trod is now ten feet below the surface of the wharf, where com- 
merce plies its occupation. But what need have such men of mon- 
uments ? A monument to their names is but an object placed near 
the eye to intercept the real vision of their greatness. Not the 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 215 

gates of the Leyden city, whence they departed from the Old 
World, nor the Rock of Plymouth, where they entered the New, are 
moniinients of their glory ; but the free institutions of America, the 
career and the capacities of human improvement opened throughout 
that boundless Western World, are the monuments and testimonials 
of their woi-th. Half the planet whose air we inhale has already 
been blessed by their godlike attributes ; and the time is not far 
distant when the whole shall join in one acclaim to their praise. 

At Leyden we saw Jussieu's botanical garden, as well as the 
Linnaean. They are said to be among the best in the world. The 
keeper said it contamed twenty thousand individual plants. Aus- 
tralia was largely represented in a fine conservatory. 

In some of the schools here was the most offensive proof I have 
yet witnessed, that the Dutch, like the Germans, have no noses. 

When one large school opened, ' all the children placed them- 
selves in a becoming attitude, and closed their eyes ; then one of the 
boys, being appointed, read a short prayer. I have never seen in 
any schools, either abroad or at home, pubhc or private, composed 
of older or younger scholars, such propriety and decorum, during 
devotional exorcises, as in the Dutch schools. No religious dogmas 
are allowed to be taught in them. 

We saw here the Japanese museum of Dr. Siebold. Although 
I was disappointed in this, yet perhaps it was because I had ex- 
pected too much. There were many objects of curiosity, and some 
of a more rational interest. What pertained to the fine arts, how- 
ever, was uniformly placed in the foregTOund ; while specimens of 
the useful ones, on which the welfare and progress of mankind so 
much more directly depend, were thrown aside into obscure places, 
or even east away like rubbish. The manner in which a nation 
makes a mill, or builds a house or a skip, is far more important 
than the manner in wliich they make japanned baskets or silk 
sandals. 

The Town Hall of Leyden contains a number of pictures illustra- 
tive of the distinguished men of the olden time. A court of justice 
is also in this building. 

The road from Leyden to Rotterdam, through the Hague, is a 
very delightful one. It lies, almost all the way, along the dike or 



216 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

embankment of one of the great canals. The waters of the canal are 
high above the level of the surrounding country ; and this country is 
also above the surface of the numerous canals by which it is inter- 
sected. At brief intervals along the way, windmills are stationed, 
which raise the waters of the surro'anding country, and pour them 
into this gTeat canal, which is upheld by its embankments, and 
thereby preserves the whole land from inundation. I have not seen 
a single lock, from Ryswyk, where we left the Rhine, made neces- 
sary to accommodate a difference of level in the land. With a few 
exceptions, when we saw sand-hills in the distance, the whole area 
is almost one dead level, not only as far as the eye can reach, but 
as the traveller proceeds, day after day, stage after stage, it presents 
the same aspect. I have seen but very little tillage : it is almost 
aU pasture-land. 

At Rotterdam, we visited a prison for young offenders, — one 
hundred and forty-four, between the ages of ten and eighteen. They 
are confined for periods varying from a year to half a year. The 
principle of reform is constant occupation, either manual or mental. 
From eight, a.bi., till twelve, the boys are in school, where they 
learn to read, write, cipher, &c. ; and some of them arc taught to 
draw very beautifully. After dinner they work at various trades, 
— joinery, carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, &c. The command- 
ant was a very good man. The prison for those under arrest was 
on the old plan, in which there are only varieties of had, without 
any good. 

In Antwerp, we ascended to the top of the tower of Notre Dame 
before breakfast ; and after breakfast attended a school for girls, kept 
by a nun, where the children work and study alternately. The 
work is the manufacture of lace, which begins at six in the morning. 
It is a very curious operation, and well worth the trouble of seeing. 
In Brussels, where the richest lace is made, there are larger estab- 
lishments. It is said the spinning of the thread is very injurious, 
and indeed sometimes fatal, to the eye. The finest lace is worth 
forty dollars a yard. But why should a queen or a duchess hesitate 
to wear lace which cost forty dollars a yard, because one class of 
people are worked to death to get the money, and another class 
destroy the eye in making the article? 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 217 

In Brussels, all the scliools were in vacation, even those for the 
deaf, dumb, and blind. While we were there, the Queen of England 
made a visit to her uncle, which caused a great stir among the 
people. There was a vast crowd out on the occasion, and the city 
was beautifully decorated. But the people were very well behaved, 
and no disorder marred the harmony of the occasion. Here I saw 
many Catholics worshipping in the churches : and every thing which 
I have seen of them, here and elsewhere, impresses me more and 
more deeply with the baneful influence of the Catholic religion upon 
the human mind ; and not upon the mind only, but even upon the 
body. The votaries are not degraded only, but distorted ; not only 
debased, but deformed. Belgium has lately laid the foundation, by 
a fundamental law of the government, for a national system of in- 
struction. The schools, which are for the whole kingdom, are to 
be under the civil authority as to theii' instruction, but under the 
ecclesiastical in reference to morals and religion; and religion 
and morals are proclaimed inseparable in the schools. This latter 
branch of instruction is to be given by clergymen of that denomina- 
tion to which a majority of the children in the school belong ; 
but the children of parents of a different denomination are not held 
to be present at the instruction. As, however, the population of 
Belgium is mainly CathoUc, it is easy to see to whose benefit this law, 
though on its face impartial, will inure. Here the Catholics are 
giving to the Protestants a taste of what the Protestants, in some 
other places, are endeavoring to force upon them. 

The same law which establishes a system of public instruction 
estabhshes two Normal schools. 

Paris, Sept. 20. ... At the hall of the Louvre, the heads of 
several of the kings to whose hands the destinies of millions were 
committed were as rascally as their lives ; and why should not the 
former correspond with the latter, as effect bears a relation to cause ? 

After visiting many hospitals and prisons in and around 
Paris, Mr. Mann says, — 

On the whole, I think we are far ahead of any thing I have seen 
in Europe in regard to the treatment of the insane, especially if we 



218 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

take into consideration the material ai-rangements as well as the 
moral treatment of this class. 

At Versailles, the Normal School of France occupies the build- 
ings which were the dog-kennels of Louis XIV. and XV. ; and a 
revolution which can turn a dog-kennel into a Normal school has 
at least one argument in its favor. . . . 

The Jardin des Plantes is the embodiment of science. The 
Museums of Comparative Anatomy, of Mineralogy and Botany, are 
splendid collections. Even to the uninstructed eye, the number, 
variety, and beauty of the objects they contain are a source of high 
gratification. What, then, must they be to the well-prepared mind, 
which sees here such a profusion and diversity of beautiful and 
magnificent objects as would at first lead him to suppose that many 
a god, each powerful to create and bountiful to bestow, had here 
mingled the abundance of their gifts, until, on a profounder view, 
he discovers running through all this variety, and connecting its 
most dissimilar parts, such a unity of plan, and consistency in exe- 
cution, as compels him to beheve that all this disparity of parts 
and exuberance of detail proceeds from one and the same all-power- 
ful and all-wise Creator ! 

The Foundling Hospital is a vast cesspool, where one portion of 
the vice of Paris, after passing for a long time in subterranean chan- 
nels, is brought to light. The facts connected with it are appalling. 
For an -average of ten years, the number of illegitimate children 
deposited here has amounted nearly to five thousand annually ; a 
number many times greater than the whole number of births in the 
city of Boston. The total expense of this establishment in 1839 
was three hundred thousand dollars. At the same date, the num- 
ber of children belonging to the institution was fifteen thousand 
seven hundi-ed and nineteen. All this must strike not only the 
moralist and the philanthropist, but even a political economist, — who 
might be neither moral nor philanthropic, — with terror. What a 
condition of society it comes out of ! and what a condition it must 
soon plunge the best society into ! All these are thoughts which 
would arise without any prompting in the mind of a reflecting man ; 
but, to excite the appropriate emotions which appertain to these intel- 
lectual truths, one should see the place itself in all its details, and 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 219 

particularity of misery. Considered as history, how much crime 
does it reveal ! Considered in its present connections with those 
wi'etched beings whose misfortune or guilt has filled it, what a living 
record of shame and woe is each deserted child ! Considered as 
prophecy, considered in its necessary and indissoluble connection 
with the future degradation of these unhappy but innocent outcasts, 
of what an inconceivable amount of mortification, of secret grief, of 
crime, of despair that leads to crime, is it the certain herald ! If 
one, standing in the midst of these five thousand guiltless but help- 
less beings, were suddenly gifted with the spirit of prophecy, if he 
could lift the veil which hides their future destiny, what forms of 
woe, of desperation, of madness, of suicide, of death, and of crimes 
that are worse than death, would start up and fill the air before 
him ! How would the low and piteous wail, which strikes the ear 
as soon as one passes the threshold, rise to a tempest of groans ! 
Oh, woe for humanity that it should contain these elements of 
misery and wTong ! Oh, deeper woe for humanity, that, while it 
contains these elements, there should be so few among the great 
and powerful of the earth to seek for its amelioration ! 

Took a walk through the Place do la Concorde to the Champs 
Elysees, and up to I'Etoile, or Arch of Triumph, — a splendid work 
of art, commemorative of some of those remarkable events in the 
history of France for which she ought to feel remorse instead of 
pride. 

On the whole, the prisons which I have seen in Paris were miser- 
ably constructed (with one exception, — that for the " Jeunes 
Detenues "), and under loose regulations; the prisoners associating 
together indiscriminately. " Their keepers do not seem to me to be 
men of high character and principles ; and therefore those elevating 
influences that should daily flow in upon them, as the surest means 
of their reformation, do not appear to exist. Nothing in the situation 
of the prisons, in the wisdom of the penal laws, in the conscientious 
administration of them by the courts, nor in the character of the 
head director or spiritual guide, can produce the legitimate oflfact of 
prison disciphne upon the motives and character of the condemned, 
unless the assistants, who are continually brought into contact with 
the prisoners, be themselves of a character to transmit any good in- 



220 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

fluences which may flow out from others, or to originate and exert 
such influences themselves. 

Versailles was built by Louis XIV., who, it is said, expended 
two hundred million dollars upon it. In extent and splendor, it 
surpasses any thing I have yet seen in Europe. The front is a 
thousand eight hundred and fifty feet long : but this gives no idea 
of its capacity; for its wings are nearly, if not quite, as capacious as 
its front. It has been placed in its present condition, as a pictorial 
history gallery of France, mainly by the present king (Louis 
Philippe). It contains pictures of all the great battles fought by 
Napoleon. These are arranged in chronological order; a room, or 
suite of rooms, being devoted to the victories he gained in one year, 
another to those gained the next year, and so on. One suite of 
rooms is devoted to the marshals of France, another to the admirals, 
another to the kings, &c. But the spirit of the whole breathes of 
war. The canvas glows with martial fire. The whole scene is red 
with the blood of battle. It seems to be rather a temple dedicated 
J to Mars than the work of a civilized nation in the eighteenth century, 

— of that era which we call Christian. Beforehand, one would 
say it is impossible that such a thing should be done. With a 
thorough knowledge of the French people, one may say that it is 
impossible such a thing should not be done. Here and there only, 
and scattered, with wide intervals between them, is there any me- 
morial .of sages, philosophers, or philanthropists. And this spot is 
visited more, perhaps, than any other in France. How must all 
these things cultivate that love of military renown, that passion for 
the criminal glories of war, which has worked such havoc upon the 
resources, the prosperity, and the lives of this people ! 

The water-works or fountains of Versailles admit of no descrip- 
tion : they must be seen. In the Great Fountain of Poland, 
seventy-four separate fountains pour out their streams. The grotto 

— a structure of a semicircular form — is built of stones, terrace 
above terrace, eight in number ; and the water which flows into 
the upper one pours over its brink into the second, and so on until 
it reaches the lower terrace, the whole being on one side of a circle 
or area of beautifully ornamented gi'ound. The Fountain of Col- 
umns is an area of some hundred feet in diameter, in the centre 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 221 

of wliicli is a beautiful fountain, playing into a large basin, around 
whose circumference are twenty-four other fountains, throwing up 
beautiful jets of water, and altogether making a circle about the 
central one. Outside of all this are double rows of marble columns, 
with marble beams, as it were, extending from the top of one col- 
umn to another, binding them all together. Then comes the Foun- 
tain of Apollo, which represents him, after the completion of his 
day's circuit through the heavens, resting from his labors, and re- 
ceiving the homage and caresses of his nymphs. On each side of 
him are his horses, also reposing after the toils of the day. As a 
background to these groups, an artificial rock of huge dimensions rises 
up to a great height, now overgrown with trees. In the centre of 
this rock, and immediately behind the principal group of figures, is 
a cave, from which pours a copious stream of water ; and, a little to 
the left of this, another stream gushes out, and descends, in short 
cascades, to the basin below. 

Last and grandest of all is the Fountain of Neptune. The 
huge basin of this fountain is in the form of a half-circle. On the 
straight side or diameter spout up many fountains, the middle one 
being the highest, the others in regular gradation ; so that a line 
drawn through the tops of the respective jets would describe an 
arc of a very large circle. At the corners, two immense lions 
spout vast quantities of water from their mouths. These jets 
are directed, at an angle of thirty or thirty-five degrees, towards 
a central point in the basin. On a parallel with the line of jets 
first described, rising out of the basin, are otlier jets, and again 
others ; so that the whole number, considered simply as station- 
ary objects, present a beautiful symmetry. Thousands of people 
were gathered around the circular side of the basin, enjoying 
the beautiful scene. 

In addition to all that has been described (which, however, has 
not been described), these great basins are all so symmetrically 
located, and the avenues of tall trees that lead from one to the 
other so appositely opened, that every beauty in each is enhanced 
by its relation to the others and to the whole. The Great 
Fountains, as they are called, are played on the first Sunday of 
every month, when half Paris pours out to see the spectacle. At 



222 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Versailles are also the palaces of the Great Trianon and tlie 
Little Trianon. These have not much beauty or splendor, but 
are memorable for the fortunes and characters' of the beings who 
have mhabited them. The latter was the favorite residence of 
Marie Antoinette. Here she sought to imitate humble and do- 
mestic life by having a group of Swiss cottages constructed, and 
to please her fancy by something quite the reverse of that life 
which she had always led. One of them was a dairy, where she and 
her ladies-in-waiting used to play dairy -women. It is a fact 
worth remarking, that while those who are in humble walks of life 
are perpetually striving to reach or to imitate the splendor of the 
opulent, and longing to exercise the authority of the powerful, 
here was an individual, born to power, educated amid the luxu- 
ries of a court, and resident in the most luxurious court in the 
world, who sought for novelty and gratification in the simple em- 
ployments of the laborious poor. 

After returning to London, I visited Oxford, the seat of the 
famous university. I had a seat in the cars, from London to Ox- 
ford, with a student or fellow of one of the colleges. I had much 
conversation with him ; and when, at one time, it became necessary 
to explain to him that I was not an Englishman, he immediately 
replied, " Oh ! then you must be a Russian, as you speak our lan- 
guage as none but an Englishman or a Russian can." . . . The 
professoj-ships of Oxford go far to exhaust the various sciences, 
according to their usual grand division into subjects. But hardly 
any one attends upon these lectures. The professor of law 
advertises, several times a year, that at such a time he shall 
deliver a course of lectures on law ; but no one appears to hear 
him, and he delivers no lectures. So of the other professors. 
Dr. Buckland occasionally has a few hearers in attendance upon 
his geological lectures ; but this is an exception. Each college, in 
addition to the public professorships above mentioned, appoints a 
certain number of private tutors, who are taken from among the 
fellows of the college making the appointments, and these private 
tutors instruct in Greek and Latin. On these instructions all the 
pupils are compelled to attend ; and Greek and Latin become the 
only secular subjects of study, with exceptions too insignificant to 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 223 

be mentioned. Theology is skidiecl, as this is the aim of a large 
part of the students resorting to Oxford. The Latin grammar is 
still studied in the original language by the pupils of the prepara- 
tory schools. The average age of those entering these colleges is 
eighteen years. One might marvel at the folly of devoting four 
years, at this period of life, to the classics ; but hardly any thing is 
marvellous which has habit, early education, and prescription on 
its side. All the old, who have the control, have been educated in 
this way ; and all the young who aspire to honors in the university 
know they are to be obtained only by pursuing the same course. 
The old practice is still kept up of having a sermon delivered in 
Latin the day before the commencement of the term. I was pres- 
ent during a part of this pedantic exercise, and heard an elderly 
man prosing oiF from a manuscript, from which he never raised his 
eyes, to about twenty younger men in gowns. ... 

The great Bodleian Library has become so vast, that no account ^ 
is any longer taken of the number of its books, and the books of 
which are not arranged according to subjects, but sizes ; a catalogue 
designating- the place where they may be found. This has a very 
great disadvantage, especially for a young man, who may not know 
beforehand what particular book he wants, or what is its title ; 
whereas, if they were arranged according to subjects, an inquirer 
could resort to the proper compartment, and find whatever the 
library might contain on that subject. 

In the Bodleian Library, I had another amusing instance of the 
knowledge of one of the body of learned men at Oxford. The 
gentleman who took me round into the various rooms containing the 
immense piles of books, observed, when he saw me looking at some 
law-books that had just come in, that, three or four years ago, a 
young gentleman from America, who visited the library, told him, 
much to his surprise, that the English law-books, and especially 
the English reports, were used in American courts ! My conduct- 
or was the professor of Arabic ! Here was a professor of Arabic 
who did not know that the common law of America is the same 
as the common law of England ! 

On the whole, though I had not very elevated conceptions of the 
glories of Oxford before visiting it, I must confess that an inquiry 



224 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

into its organization, coui-se of study, and especially the spirit 
that prevails there, took away most of the respect, such as it was, 
that I had. Dr. Buckland told me there was no intercourse 
between the officers and fellows of the college and the inhab- 
itants of the city. They looked down upon all those not educated 
like themselves with disrespect or contempt ; and no private worth, 
nothing but the most extraordinary genius or attainments in other 
departments, could atone for an ignorance of Greek and Latin. 

Mr. Mann's visit to Europe may have saved his life at 
the time ; but it could hardly be called a rest. He hardly 
waited till the exliaustion caused by a very stormy and 
sea-sick passage home had passed away before he again 
plunged into excessive toil. He sought the repose of the 
country to prepare his Seventh Report, which was upon 
education in Europe ; and this was immediately followed 
by the long controversy with the Boston masters, as the 
public school-teachers of the city were called. These 
masters formed almost a close corporation, eager for each 
other's interests, and almost monopolizing, by the influ- 
ence they exerted, the choice of who should form this 
very important body. But Mr. Mann's own account of 
the war they waged with him will give a more just view 
of it than any one else can do. 

The following extract shows the tension of his nerves 
under this infliction : — 

Boston, Feb. 10, 1844. 

Dr. E. Jarvis. My dear Sir, — ... Can you do any thing 

for a brain that has not slept for three weeks ? I can feel the flame 

in the centre of my cranium, blazing and flaring round just as you 

see that of a pile of brush burning on a distant heath in the wind. 

What can be done to extinguish it ? 

Yours truly, 

H. M. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 225 

Wkentham, April, 1844. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — Would to Heaven that an ocean did not 
separate us, and that some mode of communication more quick and 
spiritual than that of correspondence by letter were left us I I long 
again for intercourse with your mind, in order to discover more and 
more of those laws of the universe that determine the order of 
Nature and regulate the affairs of men. It is only through a 
knowledge of these laws that the individual can be brou.ght into 
harmony with the universe, and that the progress of the race can be 
placed upon a secure basis. . . . 

Our history since I last wrote you, though full of toil, anxiety, 
and feeling, can be told in a few words. We suffered, from Dieppe 
to Brighton, from Milford Haven to Waterford, from Dublin to 
Liverpool, and from Liverpool to Boston, one of the worst passages 
that have been experienced since St. Paul's shipwi'eck. There 
were many ships lost the night we came across the English Chan- 
nel ; and, during the whole of our voyage home, we had a strong 
head wind, and of course encountered a heavy sea, which struck day 
after day, like a pugilist, directly into the nose of the vessel. I 
passed sixteen days and nights almost without food, and with as 
little sleep. Of course, all vitality was abstracted fx'om me. At 
home, I found an immense mass of labor to be performed; and 
doubtless I commenced it before my system had recovered from its 
exhaustion. On the whole, therefore, I have not been able to ac- 
cumulate any stock of health, but have lived upon what strength I 
could make from day to day. . . . My Report, generally speaking, 
has met with unusual favor; but there are owls, who, to adapt the 
world to their own eyes, would always keep the sun from rising. 
Most teachers amongst us have been animated to greater exertions 
by the account of the best schools abroad. Others are offended at 
being driven out of the paradise which their own self-esteem had 
erected for them. 

The Episcopalians here have always borne me a grudge be- 
cause I have condemned the spirit of the English Church in deny- 
ing all education to the people, which they could not pervert to the 
purposes of proselytism. After the appearance of the first two 
numbers of my Journal this year, and of my Report, a regular at- 

15 



226 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

tack was commenced upon rae in a paper whicli is the organ of that 
sect, and was published in Boston. Of course, they had too much 
craft to avow the real grounds of their hostility, but fabricated 
charges, in regard to which they excited the sympathy of others. 
Hence they were in the false position of a man who acts from one 
set of motives, while he avows another. The reasons given in such 
cases never correspond with the feelings manifested or the charges 
made. A man who lives in that way can never take good aim; and 
so, of course, misses the mark. These attacks became so virulent, 
that I at last replied. My first reply was admitted into the paper 
that had brought forward the accusation; and the editor accompanied 
it with remarks so weak and wicked, that I replied to those. This 
last communication he refused to admit. I then published it in an- 
other paper. Both of my articles have been extensively copied into 
other papers; and, as fai* as I can learn, I have almost all the other 
denominations on my side, and even the great mass of the Episco- 
palians themselves. Though I am considered as having kept down 
my tem^jer pretty well, for one of the uncircumcised Philistines, yet 
some writers, who have espoused my cause in the newspapers, have 
opened all the batteries of destructiveness upon them. 

On the whole, it is believed that this will be the last effort 
of orthodoxy to secure the admission of its doctrines into our 
schools. . . . 

I have hardly left room for personal and domestic concerns. 

I told you in my note that our boy was born on the 25th of Feb- 
ruary. Your brother's book is our guide in all things. We live 
alike in the light of his laws and in the admiration of his spirit. 
We have come out into the country to a place about twenty-five 
miles from Boston, on the old post-road to Providence, where we in- 
tend to pass the summer. It will take a very long letter from you 
io tell us half what we want to know about you. One thing, if you 
can, I wish you to do; and that is, to prepare for me four articles on 
the four temperaments, detaihng the different manner of treatment 
that each of them should receive, especially in childhood. This 
would be for my Journal, several volumes of which — enough, I be- 
lieve, to make up your file — I have sent you. Give our kindest 
regards to your brother's family (in whom we include Mr. and Miss 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 227 

Cox), and all who inquire for us, or who, through you, have been 
led to take any interest in us. . . . 

We go on with the cause very much as heretofore. Though we 
had a Whig Legislature, yet there was a strong infusion of hostile 
spirit in it. But they did not dare to attack our cause. We asked 
nothing of them ; and our politicians will not give, except they ex- 
pect to receive in return. Send me what educational news you 
can. I sent you a Report, not addressed. Grive it to whom you 
please. 

Ever truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Weentham, June 27, 1844. 
Rev. S. J. May. My dear Sir, -^- . . . I am six feet deep — 
that is, over head and ears — in the Abstract. It is going on well, 
and will come out bright. My heart is in the work, or fifteen hours 
a day would kill me. , . . 

TO THE SAME. 

Boston, Oct. 16, 1844. 

My dear Sir, — Troubles thicken ; but that only makes me stif- 
fen. On Friday, this week, at the Teachers' Convention in Ipswich, 
Mr. Swan is to lecture on reading-books. Of course, the plan of 
Mr. Pierce and myself is to be blown up. In the evening, F. Emer- 
son is to lecture on the best modes of improving common schools. 
Of course, every thing which we care for and consider indispensable 
is to be assailed. I have so much to do, that I cannot go. Will 
you go and defend the cause, and save the Essex-County teachers 
from being carried over en masse into the ranks of our enemies ? 
I shall insist on paying your expenses; but I want your time and 
influence there. 

In the greatest possible haste, I am yours, &c., 

HOEACE MANN. 



In making extracts from Mr. Mann's letters to Mr. 
Cyrus Pierce, with whom his intercourse was like that 
of a brother, I shall not omit his own references to some 



228 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

slanders of the day which touched his honor, — a point 
upon which he was keenly sensitive. 

Wkentham, Aug. 12, 1844. 

C. PiEKCE, Esq. My dear Sir, — I am disappointed about the 
fitting-tip of the schooU'oom. I had set my heart upon having a 
Normal room for the Normal school. I feel unwilling to relinc[uish 
the beautiful vision I had in my mind. If you make the case 
known in Newton, cannot some further assistance be obtained? I 
will write to the postmaster about it. Why wiU you not see Prof. 
Sears ? 

I think he is so much interested, that he could engage to get a 
hundred dollars or so. Perhaps Mr. James would do the same. 
If Mr. Jackson has returned, see him. I cannot bear the thought 
of giving it up. In the last resort, you may run the Board in debt 
two hundred dollars; and, if they won't pay it, I will. 

So far as what the Board owns at Lexington will not do for 

Newton, sell it, and use the money. You have said nothing about 

a bell. Perhaps some one will give one by and by. You must 

see Messrs. James and Sears. I do not believe Mr. Sears will let 

the thing go without an effort. Yours truly, 

HOEACE MANN. 
P. S. — Put the rooms in good order. 

July 30, 1844. 

GrEORGE Combe, Esq. 

My dear Friend, — It is now the last of July. Months and 
months have passed since we have heard from you. ... As you are 
as punctual to your plans as the sun to the seasons, I have sup- 
posed you would be in Edinburgh in May ; and accordingly directed 
two letters there, and sent you my last Ropoi-t and some volumes of 
the " Common-school Journal," with other documents. One 
of the documents was entitled the " Common-school Controversy." 
If you have received it, you will see that we have been engaged in 
a struggle here on the question of doctrinal teaching in our public 
schools. The accounts, in my last Report, of how religion is forced 
down the throats, and thus introduced into the circidation of chil- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 229 

dren abroad, has started some of our fanatical people, who think it 
is necessary first to put me down, that they may afterwards carry 
out their plans of introducing doctrines into our schools. What I 
said of religious teaching in the English, Scotch, and Prussian 
schools, would, as I thought, be an antidote against attempting, the 
same things here. With the ultra-orthodox it has proved just the 
reverse. They say, " Why cannot we do here as they do there ? " 
They know by experience that the Bible never eifects the teaching 
of their views, unless they send an interpreter with it. Therefore 
they are determined an interpreter shall accompany it ; and, if this 
is not done forthwith, they think it will be too late. I speak advi- 
sedly, and from the best authority, when I say that an extensive 
conspiracy is now formed to break down the Board of Education, 
as a preliminai-y measure to teaching sectarianism in the schools. 
The latter they can never effect ; but the former, it is not impossible, 
they will do. But it will not do to present this bold ground as the 
basis of the attack. They can have an understanding between 
themselves in regard to this, but make the chai'ge on other pre- 
tences. One of the other means is to impugn the accuracy of my 
Report on certain points. I wrote you, heretofore, that I under- 
stood the Scotch delegation, who came out here to obtain funds in 
behalf of the Free Church, being ashamed of the religious aspect of 
some of their schools, as presented in my Report, had given out 
intimations adverse to its accuracy. These they are endeavoring to 
extend by public rumor, to make them cover more ground. Can 
you help me in these matters ? — remembering that, by so doing, 
you are helping the cause of religious freedom, not only in this 
country, but over all the world. What I shall want from Scotland 
is something I can use as authority to show that my description of 
their schools is correct as regards the manner of imparting secular 
as well as religious instruction. The school in Niddy Street, Edin- 
burgh, and also a school kept by IMr. Carmichael, for giving 
classical education, will fully sustain every word I have said in 
regard to the vehement and rapid intercourse between teacher and 
pupils. I think, also, that you may hear such religious instruction 
as I have described in many of the schools of the common grade. 
I am sorry to trouble you even with these rumors of wars ; but I 



230 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

most seriously apprehend we are to have a conflict. The best por- 
tion of the orthodox are with us, who may possibly ward off the 
impending danger ; but you know how feeble is the control which 
reason can exercise over fanaticism. 

Can you tell me, without any trouble, what is the supposed 
amount of rents drawn from the land in Ireland by absentee land- 
lords, and what also is the value of tithes (commutations) paid for 
the support of the Protestant elei'gy. and taken out of the country 
annually ? 

I think Mr. Wyse told me the latter was six millions sterling ; 
but I have forgotten, and have lost a few of the last sheets of my 
Journal. 

What is the whole number of voters in the kingdom for members 
of Parliament ? What is the number of union workhouses ? 

I am not going to write a book.* 

With much love and regard, 

HORACE MANN. 

Boston, Dec. 1, 1844. 
My dear Mr. Combe, — I owe you for three long, excellent, soul- 
cheeiing letters ; and yet I am so circumstanced, that I can give 
you in return only one short and worthless one. We have been 
spending the summer in the country, about thirty miles from Boston, 
and came into winter quarters last evening. . . . The orthodox have 
hunted me this wmter as though tliey were bloodhounds, and I a 
poor rabbit. They feel that they are losing strength, and that the 
period even for regaining it is fast passing out of then* hands. 
Hence they are making a desperate struggle. They feel in respect 
to a free education, that opens the mind, develops the conscience, 
and cultivates reverence for whatever is good without the infusion 
of Calvinistic influence, as the old monks felt about printing, when 
they said, " If we do not put that down, it will put us down." My 
office, duties, labors, stand in their way. Hence my immediate 
destraction is for the glory of God. They have not done yet; 

* Mr. Mann considered himself as still a servant of the State, and thought he 
had no right to write a book for his own interest. He had therefore embodied 
his observations of foreign schools in Ms Seventh Annual Keport. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 231 

thougli from circumstances, which I will proceed to name, they have 
just now suspended hostilities. 

There are two classes, — the one who are orthodox only by 
association, education, or personal condition. These may be good 
people, though they always suffer under that limitation of the facul- 
ties which orthodoxy imposes. The second class are those who are 
born orthodox, who are naturally or indigenously so ; who, if they had 
had wit enough, would have invented orthodoxy, if Calvin had not. 
I never saw one of this class of men whom I could trast so long as 
a man can hold his breath. These are the men who are assailing 
me. 

My Report caused a great stir among the Boston teachers : I 
mean those of the grammar-schools. The very things in the Report 
which made it acceptable to others made it hateful to them. The 
general reader was delighted with the idea of intelligent, gentle- 
manly teachers ; of a mind-expanding education ; of children gov- 
erned by moral means. The leading men among the Boston gram- 
mar-school masters saw their own condemnation in this description 
of their European contemporaries, and resolved, as a matter of self- 
preservation, to keep out the infection of so fatal an example as was 
afforded by the Prussian schools. The better members dissuaded, 
remonstrated, resisted ; bat they are combined together, and feel 
that in union is their only strength. The evil spirit prevailed. A 
committee was appointed to consider my Report. A part of the 
labor fell into the worst hands. After working at the task aU 
summer, they sent forth, on the 1st of September, a pamphlet of 
a hundred and forty-four pages, which I send you, and leave you 
to judge of its character. I was then just finishing my Annual 
Abstract, a copy of which I send you, and which I commend to 
your attention for its extraordinary merits. As soon as the prepara- 
tion of the Abstract was complete, which was my recreation during 
the hot days of summer, I wrote a " Reply to the Boston Masters." 
In this Reply, you will see of how much service your letter and others 
have been to me. Please make just as warm acknowledgments to 
Mr. Maclearan as ought to be made by me. His kind letter was 
most welcome. 

I think the Reply is doing something in Boston. All except the 



232 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

ultrarorthodox papers are earnest, I may almost say vehement, against 
the masters. I ought to have said that one of the masters, William 
J. Adams, Esq., came out in the newspapers with a public retrac- 
tion, and disavowal of his signature. 

Our municipal election for mayor, school-committee men, &c., 
comes on a week from Monday ; and, in some of the wards, a 
change has already been made in nominating school-committee men, 
the voters being determined to have better schools and less flogging. 
In ward number seven, the central and most intelligent ward in the 
city, strong resolutions were passed on the subject, evening before 
last. Others meet to-morrow evening, and are resolved to do the 
same. Sir. Quincy is the candidate for mayor ; and he goes for 
reform, both as a friend of the cause, and as my strong personal 
friend. . . . 

But things are coming to a crisis. The prevailing party will 

probably be left in possession of the field for some time to come. . . . 

Ever and ever truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

P. S. — You will do me another great favor by either supplying 
me, or informing me how I can supply myself, with Capt. Macon- 
ochie's pamphlets, pubhshed at Hobart Town in 1838 and 1839, 
and also some account of his administration at Norfolk Island. I 
want all that I can turn to good account on the subject of school- 
discipline. 

Portland, Sept. 1, 1844. . . . Prof. Stowe's introductory lecture 
before the Institute was an admirable thing. It was on " Religious 
Instruction in Common Schools ;" and he occupied and powerfully 
defended even broader ground than I have ever done. They have 
voted to print five thousand extra copies, and it will be circulated 
far and wide. The orthodox must now denounce him, or let me 
alone. 

Boston, Dec. 14, 1844. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I received your note, with the accompanying 

bills, yesterday. They have astounded me. As you say yourself, 

it is more than double the amount which I ever had an idea of ex- 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 233 

pending upon the place, — more tlian double wliat we ever talked 
of. . . . The Board held its annual meeting on Tuesday and Wednes- 
day last. In making the estimates for the current expenses, I 
proposed to Mr. James, the chairman of the visitors, the allowance 
of five hundred dollars for expenses of fitting up, beyond the New- 
ton contributions. Even to that sum he seriously demurred, but 
finally put it in. It was handed to the Governor, as chairman and 
presiding ofiicer, who expressed a doubt about its being presented 
to the Board, on account of its amount. Mr. Bates then sought an 
interview with me, and repeated the doubts of the Grovernor, con- 
firmed by his own. I told him that five hundred dollars was as 
little as we could get along with in addition to the Newton contribu- 
tions; and, if the Board did not see fit to make that allowance, I 
should pay it out of my own pocket. It was then allowed. But 
what will they say to a thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars ? 
I confess I know not, and see not what can be done. 

When the purchase of the building was sugg-eaced to some of the 
members at fifteen hundred dollars, and before we got the money 
to buy it, an objection was made to the amount, that the Board had 
no right to expend so large a sum for a building. Yet here is 
between three and four hundred dollars more than the whole sum, 
for improvements only ! 

The whole strikes me as a very serious matter ; and I have not 
been so alarmed about any thing this long time. What measures 
can be devised for rehef ? 

Truly yours, 

H. MANN. 

The Board had not agreed to purchase the building ; 
and Mr. Mann begged the money, and purchased it him- 
self. But Mr. Mann may speak for himself in a letter 
written as late as 1852, when political opponents tried 
every means to undermine his reputation. 

In 1850, some gentlemen who knew that he had fitted 
up the building at his own expense, and contributed 
something toward the erection of the two other Normal 
school-buildings, made a representation of the facts to the 



234 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Legislature of Massachusetts, and lie was partially re- 
munerated by the State ; but it was done wholly without 
his seeking. Mr. Livingstone published the proceedings, 
which will be found in the Appendix to this work. 

Dover, N.H., Oct. 30, 1853. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — After speaking every evening this week from 
an hour to two hours each, I feel a little Monday-ish, as you min- 
isters say. Still, I am in good spuits, and have a faith undimmed 
in our ultimate triumph. 

Perhaps you have seen that the apprehension I expressed to you 
about the enemy has been abeady fulfilled. The " Boston Post " 
of Friday last, in one of those short javelin paragraphs by which 
they mean to kill people from an ambush, asked, " What are the 
facts in relation to the purchase of the Fuller Academy in West 
Newton, by Hon. Horace Mann, for the Normal School?" — in- 
tending thereby to make an insinuation against me. 

I wish I could have seen you after I saw that ; but I was on my 
way to preach the political gospel here in New Hampshire. Could 
I have seen you, I would have asked you to tell the " Post " that 
the facts were that I begged the money to buy the premises, instead 
of asking the State to buy them ; and then, that you and I spent 
thirteen' hundred dollars of our own money to fit them up ; and 
then ask the judgment of the " Post," whether, if there was any 
thing dishonorable in that, it was on our side. 

If I have any friends, they will find it necessary to be on the 
lookout, especially this week. 

Li haste, youi's veiy truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Mr. Pierce immediately sent a notice of the facts, over 
his own name, to the " Post ; " but, at this remote time, I 
cannot tell whether it was inserted. Probably not. It 
was about that time that his political enemies sent aa 
emissary to search the archives of the State, hoping to 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 235 

find some evidence of Mr. Mann's tampering with the 
piibhc moneys. Of course, the record was clear, and they 
retired baffled. 

In this connection, although equally out of date, I will 
subjoin part of a letter from Hon. J. Quincy, jr., in refer- 
ence to another accusation of the same kind, — that of 
appropriating to his own use the proceeds of the building, 
when sold, on the removal of the school to Pramingham. 

FROM HON. JOSIAH QUINCY, JR. 

Boston, Nov. 21, 1862. 

My dear Mrs. Mann, — My donation of fifteen Lnndred dollars 
was made to your husband, to be used by bim in promoting popular 
education. 

The immediate cause of the donation was this : The Normal 
School, which was originally established at Lexington, had been, or 
was about to be, discontinued ; and the project, ridiculed and 
opposed, was likely to be abandoned. At this time, your husband 
came into my office, and, in his very striking manner, said, — 

" If you know any man who wants the highest seat in the king- 
dom of heaven, it is to be had for fifteen hundred dollars." 

I asked what he meant. He replied that a schoolhouse at West 
Newton could be purchased for that sum; and this, if obtained, 
would enable the friends of education to convince the State of the 
importance of Normal schools, and insure their becoming an essen- 
tial part of the common-school system of Massachusetts. I gave 
him the money, directing him to take the deed in his own name. 
He sold his library to fit up the building, giving more than I did 
to the cause. The result was that Normal schools have been intro- 
duced in many, and will be introduced in all the free States.* 

In order to prevent any misunderstanding, I subsequently gave 

* Mr. Quincy has inadvertently blended two transactions in this statement. 
The Law Library had been sold several years before to fit up the boarding-house of 
the Lexington Normal School ; a promised donation for that purpose having been 
unexpectedly withdrawn. Other sacrifices were made to meet the demand for 
fitting up the West Newton house, which were made jointly by Mr. Maun and Mr, 
Pierce. 



236 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

him a written authority to apply the proceeds of the building, when 
sold, to any purpose that he might judge most conducive to pro- 
mote the interests of popular education. 

The reward playfully offered for the donation is reserved for 
others. I ask no greater than the consciousness of having aided 
him in the noble and philanthropic purpose to which he devoted 
his life. I have the honor to have been the friend of Horace 

Mann. 

Yours truly, 

J. QUINCY, Jr. 

It was Mr. Mann's intention to use Mr. Qiiincy's dona- 
tion to put a raised gutta-percha globo into all the 
common schools of Massachusetts. He projected one, 
and it was executed by some of his friends ; but gutta- 
percha works were suspended in the country, owing to 
some difficulties in the way of working it cheaply and 
stably ; and, after spending about five hundred dollars 
upon the project, it was necessary to give it up. Mr. 
Quiiicy's donation, however, was duly applied for the 
good of the State. 

Boston, Feb. 28, 1845. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — For your long and interesting letter 
of Dec. 29 I can give you only a short and dull one. I have but 
a few moments to write. 

... I have inquhed of two of our best lawyers, and both are 
clear and decided that a war with Great Britain would not result 
in a forfeiture or confiscation of American debts due to British 
subjects, or of American stock owned by them. Mr. Loring 
said he would send me an abstract of the law on the subject; 
and, should it come in season, I will forward it. But have you not 
Chancellor Kent's " Commentaries " in your law-libraiy ? If so, ex- 
amine vol. i. pp. 64, &c., and you will find the whole doctrine 
clearly and satisfactorily explained. 

Heaven forefend that the case for a legal adjudication of the ques- 
tion should ever arise ! I should look upon a war with Great Brit- 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 237 

ain almost in the light of a civil war. In the Atlantic States, it 
would be deprecated with a depth and fervor that could not be 
described. It would bring ruin to thousands of business-men, and 
would shock the spirit of peace in the more moral and religious 
portion of the community. I am sorry, however, to say that I fear 
a different spirit prevails at the West. Combativeness and destruc- 
tiveness occupy a lai'ger portion of their brains, and are made more 
active by education. They are also removed far more from the 
restraints of direct interest, and feel far less the restraints of morali- 
ty. God hasten the day when war between the great nations of i 
the earth shall be impossible ! 

I received your two letters containing an account of the religious 
common-school controversy in Massachusetts. It was well drawn 
up, and I hope will do good. Ecclesiastical oppression is wearing 
away in Europe ; but, alas! about aS* slowly as the disintegration 
of granite mountains by the seasons and elements. The paper of 
which you spoke, containing a review by a phrenologist of the 
" Vestiges," &c., I have not received. 

I am sorry to say that my controversy with the Boston school- 
masters is not ended. They do not accept the propositions of peace 
which I made. I am told they now have a Rejoinder in press. I 
think it ought to be out soon, if ever. It is now nearly four months 
since my Reply was published. An old militia-officer in the country 
told me he guessed it took them some time to bring their forces into 
line. All this is very bad, as it makes me anxiety and labor. . . . 
Capt. Maconochie must be an extraordinary man. I learn, by a 
communication from him, that he is in favor of teaching a creed in 
school. He thinks it gives a good form of words, which, in a case 
of urgency in subsequent life, may have a resurrection, and be 
clothed with spiritual power and life. I shall enclose a note to him 
in this packet to you. 

We expect this morning to hear the result of the Texas business. 
(It is now March 1.) Great anxiety prevails. On Tuesday next, 
President Polk will be inaugurated. I cannot write more, but re- 
main as ever truly and devotedly yours and Mi's. Combe's. 

HORACE MANN. 



238 LIFE OP HORACE MANN, 

CoNCOED, July 4, 1845. 

Rev. S. J. Mat. My dear Sir, — ... I hardly know whether 
I ought to hope that your situation is to your mind, or whether I 
ought to desire that you should have occasion to repent and return 
to Massachusetts, out of which you never should have gone. I can- 
not, however, but be good-natured enough to wish you here in the 
first place, but contented and happy wherever you may be. 

My mind is wholly absorbed, as always, in school-matters. We 
have not yet succeeded in making arrangements for the new Normal 
schools. Delay after delay has interposed, and postponed action. It 
has, however, been decided that the one at Bridgewater shall be 
continued there. . . . 

Probably you have seen that the " masters " are out in a " Ee- 
joinder " against me. It has fallen dead-born from the press: very 
few read it. Two Orthodox 'newspapers have tried to indorse it; 
thinking, as they always do, that whatever is practised against a 
Unitarian is for the gloiy of God. The same man who wrote that 
carping review in the "Christian Examiner " has a short notice of it 
in the last number of the same periodical, which has some shameful 

slurs. I think my friends ought to protest to Dr. and Dr. 

against turning their batteries to the overthrow of their friends. 

It is only 's connection with the Boston schools which prompts 

him to this course. He has been so long on the committee, that he 
thinks a condemnation of them is a condemnation of himself. 

The '-'masters" are in great trouble. Some of them went to 
the mayor, and besought him not to put Howe or Brigham on the 
committee of examination. He had some spirit, and put them both 
on, — Howe as chairman of the grammar-department, and Brigham 
of the writing. They have adopted a new mode of examination. A 
list of printed questions is prepared on each subject, which are 
given to all of the first section in the first class of each of the 
schools, so that all the scholars in each section can be compared 
together, and also all the first sections in all the schools. The same 
time is allowed to all for preparing and writing down their answers. 
This necessarily gives a transcript of the actual condition of the 
schools; and rumor reports that it is any thing but flattering. The 
results will be drawn off in a table ; and eight thousand copies of 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 239 

tlie reports are ordered to be printed. We shall know what condi- 
tion onr boasted Boston schools are in. 

There are suggestions for certain changes among the masters. 
Howe has asked me several times whether I thought you to be so 
devoted to the cause of practically improving the condition of the 
colored people, that you would come to Boston and take the Smith 

School;* for the general opinion is that F must go. I have 

told him that I presumed you were under engagements more or 
less binding at Syracuse. . . . 

I see by an Albany paper that there is a State Convention called, 
at Syracuse, of common-school teachers, &c. Am I not right in 
divining that this is a movement against the county superintend- 
ents, and designed to promote conservatism or stand-still-ism 
throughout the State? In the next number of the "Journal," I 
shall publish some of the proceedings of the late Syracuse Con- 
vention, with a very strong expression of good will towards the 
superintendents. My account will be taken from the "Onondaga 
Standard," which was much better than the one in the "Journal." 
I have long witnessed with very great satisfaction the course taken 
by the "Onondaga Standard" on the subject of common schools. 

Being on the ground, you will have a chance to see and know the 
means and objects of the common-school convention. Is it not of 
great importance to moderate their antagonism against the system 
of county superintendents as far as possible, and, should they per- 
sist in passing any offensive resolutions, to make use, as far as pos- 
sible, of the influence of the press in counteracting them? Of 
these things, however, you can judge better than I ; and I have no 
doubt you will do whatever you can, both for the State of New 
York, and to prevent any unfortunate re-action against Massa- 
chusetts. Very truly yours, &c., 

HOEACE MANN. 

Boston, Sept. 25, 1845, 
My dear Mr. Combe, — Since your letter of the 2d of June, 
I suppose you have visited your favorite spots upon the Rhino ; and 
I hope that you and your party, particularly Mrs. Combe, have 

* Colored school. 



240 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

realized all tlie bealth and pleasure which you anticipated from the 
excursion. How happy would it have made me could I haye been 
of your number ! but, instead of that, I liave been spending my dog- 
days in an agony of hard work. Nor have I been scorched and 
sweated by a natural Sirius only, but by a moral one. My doughty 
assailants, the Boston schoolmasters, thought best to collect their 
forces, and strive at least to make good their retreat. Whether they 
have done so, you will judge by the pamphlets I herewith enclose. 
About the last of May, after having taken sis months to rally, they 
came out with a Rejoinder to my Reply. Our controversy was 
taking so obvious a turn in favor of improvement in the schools, 
that my regret at being called into the field again was very much 
modified : accordingly, on the first of August, I gave them an 
answer ; and thus, as between ourselves, the matter now rests. 

After the presentation of the Report, the conservatives and mas- 
ters' aides-de-camp insisted upon proceeding to an election before 
the charg-es proposed in the Report could be submitted to the 
public. The old members of the committee reasoned that the al- 
leged condition of the schools convicted them of negligence and re- 
missness in the discharge of their duties in former years ; and there- 
fore they were to defend where they thought there was any hope, 
and to palliate and deprecate where they could not defend. An 
election of the masters was precipitated ; and notwithstanding the 
most earnest efforts on the part of the conservatives, and those who 
wear their eyes in the j^osterior part of the head, so as to forever 
look backward, and not forward, — notwithstanding all this, four 
of the roasters have been turned out ; a work which, twelve 
months ago, would have been deemed as impossible as to turn four 
peers out of the British House of Lords. 

Such is the present status of the matter. The Report will soon 
be in the hands of all ; and there will be a vigorous contest at the 
ensuing city election between the young Boston and the lauda- 
tores temporis acli. But the change already effected in the public 
mind, and even in the schools themselves under the old heads, is 
immense. It is estimated that corporal punishment has fallen off 
twenty-five per cent; and the masters have gone to work this year 
with the idea that they are to make their calling and election sure. . 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN, 241 

But enough of this. Knowing the kind interest you take, not only 
in the welfare of the schools, but in whatever concerns me, I have 
ventured to give you this long narration. I have suffered severely 
in the conflict, so far as my feelings are concerned ; and doubtless I 
have suffered considerably in my reputation. The masters consti- 
tute a strong body of men. They are thirty in number. They have 
immediately under them, and to a great extent dependent upon 
them, twice as many more ushers and assistants. Between all these 
there is a natural bond of union. Each one has his or her circle of 
relatives and friends ; and the whole, acting in concert and tlirough 
favorite pupils, are able to produce a gi-eat effect upon the public 
mind. But the old notion of perfection in the Boston grammar and 
writing schools is destroyed ; the prescription by which the masters 
held their office, and appointed indirectly their successors, is at an 
end. There is a strong revulsion of feeling in the public mind, and 
the masters are hereafter to stand upon their good behavior rather 
than on the self-complacency of their employers ; so that good will 
eventually come out of evil, in the old-fashioned way. . . . 

Always your friend, 

HORACE MANN. 

Concord, Oct. 7, 1845. 

Cteus Pierce, Esq. My dear Sir, — Where are you ? and 
what are you doing ? I hear no more from you than if you be- 
longed to a different planet ; but I hope your affairs prosper. Have 
you seen the Report of the Boston School Committee of the Gram- 
mar and Writing Schools ? What a pile of thunder-bolts ! Jupiter 
never had more lying by his side, when he had ordered a fi'esh lot 
wherewith to punish the wicked. If the masters see fit to assail me 
again, I think I can answer them in such a way as to make it re- 
dound to the glory of God. 

I have got up a new project for Massachusetts, — Teachers' In- 
stitutes. I am to have four of them, — one at Pittsfield, which, in 
the geography of common schools, lies in the arctic regions, above 
the line (hitherto) of perpetual congelation. I had obtained a 
promise from Gen. Oliver, formerly a distinguished teacher in 
Salem, to go to Pittsfield, and officiate as one of the teachers of the 

16 



242 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

school. Thinking that institute provided for, I have engaged all 
the available teachers whom I know to go to other places. But 
Gen. Ohver has disappointed me. I have tried several others since, 
and can secure none. I do not see but I must make a draft on 
you. I intend to take Pittsfield myself for three or four days, and 
teach by day, and lecture by night ; but by that time my pond will 
be drawn down, and I shall also have to come away for the pui'pose 
of attending another, at Fitchburg. Now I am writing all this story 
to prepai'e the way for bespeaking the services of yourself or Miss 
Tilden* to go to Pittsfield, in case I do not succeed in getting any 
one else. I know it is a bad thing to take away any of your forces ; 
but it is not a hundi-edth part so bad as it would be to have one 
of these institutes prove a failure at the very commencement of the 
experiment. 

There ai-e some reasons why I should prefer to have you go, and 
others why I should prefer to have Miss Tilden go. It would be 
fun to see her manage the great boys, and teach them their A, B, C's 
in arithmetic, and I think it would give them an intellectual spasm 
such as they never had before. There need not be the slightest 
objection on her part. Of course, all expenses will be defrayed ; 
and there is no reason why either of you might not have as pleasant 
a time as is consistent with a good degree of hard work ! Please 
answer as soon as convenient. 

And believe me ever truly yours, &c., 

H. MANN. 

^ When Mr. Mann arrived in Pittsfield, and entered the 
schoolroom assigned for the purpose (all the common 
schools were in vacation), at seven in the morning, to 
make arrangements, he found the room had been left un- 
swept, and had not been put in order for his reception. 
A hundred pupils, the teachers of schools, were expected 
at nine o'clock. Gov. Briggs, then actual Executive of the 
State, who felt great interest in Mr. Mann's plans, and 

* This lady was a very superior mathematical teacher of the West Newton 
Normal School. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 243 

had accompanied him to the schoolhouse, borrowed 
brooms in a neighboring house ; and the two gentlemen 
swept and dusted tlie room, and had all things in order at 
the appointed hour. 

Boston, Nov. 3, 1845. 

C Pierce, Esq. My dear Sir, — ... I have the most favora- 
ble accounts from Pittsfield. It was quite a stroke of pohcy to 
have Miss Tilden go there. She produced forty times more effect 
than you or I or any one else could have done, had we exhibited 
the same command of the subject that she did. I wish you could 
spare her for a day or two to go to Fitchburg ; but I hardly dare 
ask it. Contrary to my expectations, I found myself alone there 
the first two days, with more than a hundred and thirty teachers 
about me ; and you will of course say that I had to manage pretty 
shi'ewdly not to expose my ignorance. 

On Thursday, a.m., I am to start for Nantucket. From there I 
must go to Chatham, on the Cape, where we are to have another in- 
stitute; and from there to Bridgewater, where we wind up our fall 
musters, as the militia-men say. I hear you are working the young 
brains again very hard, making some ill. Remember, it is your 
duty to give power, not to take it away. 

Yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



In explanation of this last sentence, I must say that 
Mr. Pierce was so anxious for the fame of the school, that 
he inclined to press study too hard. He was a man of 
apparently iron nerves himself (though, alas ! subsequent 
years proved that even iron nerves could not withstand 
such trials as he gave them) ; and his friend, whose more 
delicate organization gave him keen sympathy with over- 
excited brains, was obliged to stand as guard-angelic over 
the health of his beloved " Normalites." An equal zeal 
for the success of what they had undertaken — a project 
that was to have such far-reaching consequences — ani- 



244 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

mated botli, and was accompauied with an equal forget- 
fulaess of self. They were not working consciously for 
their own fame ; but they alike felt that they were laying 
the foundations of the only lasting basis of a free republic, 
as yet free only in name, but destined to outlive its own 
shortcomings, as surely as truth and humanity are loftier 
principles than gain and oppression. " Would that they 
could have lived to see the dawning of that day !" is the 
exclamation of our blind affection ; but they doubtless 
see its progress in the future far more clearly than we 
can, 

Boston, Nov. 21, 1845. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

Mr DEAR Sir, — I have this moment returned from a four- 
weeks' expedition, attending Teachers' Institutes. I write to re- 
quest, to urge, and, if I only had authority, to command you to 
go to the great " Practical Teachers' " meeting at Worcester on 
Tuesday and Wednesday next. We know where it originated, 
and what the plans of some of the movers are. I am debarred 
from going. No member of the Board of Education can go ; but 
you must go and watch the enemy. 

Very truly yours, 

H. MANN. 



Boston, Dec. 2, 1845. 
Rev. S. J. May. 

My dear Sir, — I have long desired to write to you, and to 
acknowledge the receipt of your favors. But the old reason has still 
deterred me, — work, work, work. K Hood had known my case, 
he would have written the " Song of the ' Secretary,' " instead of 
the "Song of the Shirt." 

I see you cannot silence the battery that is opened upon me in 
your neighborhood. My enemies here seem to have succeeded in 
saturating the minds of the New- York teachers with prejudice 
against me, and to a degree that is unaccountable ; and your neigh- 
bor, the "Advocate," is made the vehicle of discharging their 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 245 

spleen. What have I done that has brought upon me this con- 
tumely and bitterness ? What have I done that renders me thus 
worthy of the extreme of ridicule and opprobrium ? . . . These per- 
sonal attacks are very annoying ; and I should like to prevent them, 
if it can be done. I hope I have written to him the soft words that 
turn away wrath ; but perhaps his is a worse kind than Solomon 
referred to. 

We are now in a state of excitement and anxiety on the subject 
of the school committee. The "thirty-one" are exerting every 
muscle against the reformers. Nothing can exceed their activity, or 
the baseness of the means that some of them resort to. I wish you 
to read the number of the " Journal " for Dec. 1, and see what reso- 
lutions have been taken on the subject of corporal punishment in 
our schools. ... 

We have had a State teachers' meeting here, originally designed 
as an attack upon the Board of Education ; but the movers, like 
your Albanians, were not able to carry out all their plans. 

It is late, and my sheet full : so good-night. 

Ever yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Boston, Feb. 13, 1846. 
My dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe, — Were I to stand upon cere- 
mony, I should not write you at the present time. But ceremony, 
at the best, is vanity ; and between us it would be mischief. Having 
an opportunity to send my last Report, I avail myself of it, and put 
in this note to say that we have another little son, born on the 27th 
of December. He is a fine, healthy little fellow, fat enough for an 
alderman, and has a head planned and executed on the principles 
of phrenology. His mother and I have been discussing the im- 
mensely important subject of his name. When I said to her that 
George is a pretty name, she said Greorge Combe would be a 
glorious name ; but we should not dare to call him so without youi' 
consent, indeed without your expressed desire, which I can hardly 
hope for. Our oldest boy, whom his mother calls after me, is well, 
and has a very active temperament and a very inquisitive mind. . . . 

Yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



246 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Mr. Combe, who had no children, but whose love for 
them was very great, took much interest in his " name- 
son," as he called him; and was never weary of reading 
minute accounts of the doings and sayings of both the 
children of his friend. 

April 27, 1846. 

My deab Mb. Combe, — I write you from G-ardiner, Me., where 
I have come to spend a few days with some old friends of Mrs. 
Mann. I am partially resting from my labors ; though Sisyphus 
never will be pemiitted to cease rolling his stone up hill. . . . What 
are you doing now for the good of the race ? I trust you will not 
cease to use your brain for the right formation of other brains, as 
long as it has the power of operating. . . . My affairs are going on 
prosperously. The Boston masters have not attempted any reply 
to my " Answer." I think they never will ; but I almost wish they 
would. One of the already ripened and gathered fruits of the con- 
troversy is, that it is admitted on all hands, that, since the contro- 
versy began, corporal punishment has diminished in the masters' 
schools at least eighty per cent ! 

I received, by one of the last steamers from England, a London 
edition of my Seventh Report, the very causa malorum. It was 
edited by ^h. Hodgson, who is at the head of the Mechanics' 
Institut'e, Liverpool ; and it has copious running notes from begin- 
ning to end. It so happens, that, in regard to every one of the 
points in my Report wliich the masters questioned or denied, Mx. 
Hodgson, in his notes, has contii'med my statement. That is very 
gratifying, as he had never, I presume, seen one word of the 
controversy. . . . 

As ever, yours, 

H. MANN. 

West Newton. 

My dear Sumner, — After you went away last evening, the 
same reflection occurred to me which always occurs in relation to 
such bequests as Mr. Tuttle proposes to make ; namely, why don't 
these benevolent men execute their good^ deeds while they are alive, 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 247 

and not wait till after they are dead, and so lose half the pleasure 
of it? 

i was delighted at Mr. Tattle's plan of spending his money in 
solido. It often requires all my charity not to accuse the men, who 
wish to leave a money-monument behind them, of expecting to hear 
people praise them as they lie in their graves. Let the generous 
give what money they have to give to be expended in blessing the 
world immediately; and, when that is used up, somebody will 
give more. But these mortmain funds keep others from giving 
more, because the want seems to be supplied. There is only one 
improvement on this ; and that is, to give during life, and not wait 
till after death. How Girard got fleeced and balked, and his 
benevolence kept in abeyance for years ! 

I cannot forbear saying how much I was delighted with the object 
of Mr. Tattle's charity. How I should love to administer such a 
benevolence ! One year of it would be worth all the honors of Con- 
gress forever ; that is, to me. Look at the last thi-ee verses of that 
little song of Whittier's, at the end of the number of the " Common- 
school Journal" I sent you. You can also point them out to 
Mr. Tuttle.* 

I send you a number containing my letter to the children of 

* The verses alluded to are these : — 

Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years, 
Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, 

If he hath been 
Permitted, weak and sinful as he was. 
To cheer and aid in some ennobling cause 

His fellow-men ? 

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in 
A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin ; 

If he hath lent 
Strength to the weak ; and, in an hour of need, 
Over the sutfering, mindless of his creed 

Or hue hatli bent, — 

He hath not lived in vain; and, while he gives 
The praise to Him in whom he moves and lives, 

With thankful heart 
He gazes backward, and with hope before. 
Knowing that from his works he nevermore 

Can henceforth part. 



248 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Chatauque County, New York. It cannot slioot very wide of Mr. 

Tattle's notions about children, I think. . . , 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Such letters as the following are given, in order to 
meet false accusations and misrepresentations : — 

Boston, May 15, 1846. 
Rev. S. J. Mat. 

My DEAR Sir, — After a night's ride, I have just got back to 
Boston from the convention at Albany. I could hardly reconcile my- 
self to the disappointment of not meeting you there. The conven- 
tion treated me veiy civilly. I delivered the lecture which was pro- 
nounced so heretical in the "Advocate" some months ago. It was 
apparently well received ; and Elder Knapp, of revival memory, 

said he would give any thing to see it in print. Mr. C 

complimented me by a special resolution, inviting me to deliver 
a speech on the subject of free schools ; came and caused him- 
self to be introduced to me, and gave me a long history of the 
influences which had been exerted, at the outset, to make his 
paper what it was ; said that he had felt constrained to admit 
sentiments not his own, but that the end of such things had come. 
He spoke freely of and against the Albany clique. The amount 
of it was that he was disposed to be gracious ; and though he did 
not do what I think the highest notions of duty would have 
prompted, yet I accepted it, and I tnist it will be the commence- 
ment of a new era. ... I am greatly fatigued to-day : I cannot 



write more. 



Ever and truly yours, 

H. MANN. 



WbenTHAM, July 25, 1846. 

Rev. S. J. May. 

My dear Sir, — ... We expect the new Normal School, Build- 
ing at Bridge water will be dedicated on the 19th of August. It 
will add vastly to the pleasure of the occasion to see you there. 
Do come ; do. The other, at Westfield, will be dedicated about 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 249 

the 1st of September. Then we shall have three. I think the 
cause will be anchored when those are completed, so that no storm 
which F. E. or the Boston schoolmasters can conjure up will 
drive it from its moorings. 

I see that N ' has, in the "Teachers' Advocate," opened 

his small battery upon the Normal schools. The statement made 
in the first number, that one of the Normal schools in Massachu- 
setts " has become extinct, and the State appropriations would have 
been cut off from the other two, had not a private individual offered 
to give a sum equal to that appropriated by the State," contains 
two errors, probably falsehoods. The school originally at Barre 
has not "become extinct." It was suspended for a short time, 
owing to the death of its principal. It is now removed to a more 
central and commodious place, where the State has assisted in 
erecting a building for it. The appropriation made for these 
schools, after they had been four years in operation, was made 
wholly hy the State. No private individual gave a cent. The 
State was so well convinced of their merits from the experience 
it had had, that not only was there no aid, but there was no opposi- 
tion to the grant. 

Another statement, made in number two, shows the extreme 
ignorance of the writer. He says the members of the Normal 
schools in Prussia are graduates of the universities. Not one in 
a hundred, probably not one in five hundred, of them are so. 
These flagrant misstatements ought to be pointed out. . . . The 
examination of the Boston schools is conducted this year in the 
same way as last. The masters are submissive, and it seems al- 
ready certain that a great improvement over last year has been 
made. . . . 

Believe me very truly and sincerely yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

WliENTHAM, Aug. 6, 1846. 

My dear Sumnee, — The new Normal Schoolhouse at Bridge- 
water is to be dedicated on Wednesday, the 19th inst. Address 
by Hon. William G. Bates. 

The active and leading agency you have had in executing meas- 



250 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

ures which have led to this beneficial result would make your 
absence on that occasion a matter of great regret. 

I know it will console you for your troubles in relation to the 
subject to be present on the day of jubilee, to gratify so many 
persons, and to participate in a joy which will be common and com- 
prehensive. 

Let me assure you, that, however it may seem beforehand, you 
will not be sorry afterwards for having made some exertion, and 
even some sacrifice, to be there. Probably there will be three hun- 
dred graduates of the school who will feel deeply disappointed if 
you are not present. 

Do go ! do go ! 

Ever and truly yours, &c., 

HORACE MANN. 



Boston, Blay T, 1846. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I heard you were going to add another hour to 
study-time this term. I protest against this. Your love of appro- 
bation for the fame of the school must not be a Moloch, before 
which young virgins are sacrificed ! . . . 

Ever yours, 

H. MANN. 



Wkentham, May 24, 1846. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — ... You acknowledge that you have really 
added one hour in a week to the period of study ; and, including 
four Saturday hours, you have thus an hour each day for five days. 
Now, if you have any exercise or duty for Sunday, then I do not 
see but you plead guilty to the whole of the charge. 

You say there is about as much truth in this as in the story of 
"flogging a model schoolboy in the barn, doubtless under distress- 
ing circumstances." Am I, then, to understand that there was as 
much tiiith in the flogging story as there is now acknowledged to 
be in the story about study-hours ? . . . 

Ever yours, 

H. MANN. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. ' 251 

Weentham, Aug. 6, 1846. 
Kev. S. J. May. 

My dear Sir, — I have just received yours of the 29th ult. ; 
and, while I am pleased with all its contents, there is one thing in 
it which has so delighted me, that I cannot help thinking of it, 
and writing to you about it : I mean the mention of the purpose 
and possibility of your becoming the editor of the "Teachers' Advo- 
cate." That, indeed, is a "consummation devoutly to be wished ; " 
and I beg you to leave no pains spared to accomplish so desnable 
an object. How much you could help me, and how readily and 
heartily would I help you all in my power ! . . . Push the thing, 
therefore, with all the resources you can command. Few events 
would give me greater pleasure, both on yoiu* own account and on 
account of the cause, than to hear that you have succeeded. 

Have you heard that the Legislatui-e of Maine, at its present or 
late session, has established a Board of Education, and provided 
for the appointment of a Secretary at a salary of a thousand dol- 
lars a year ? This looks well. 

Gov. Slade, of Vermont, has consented to become the agent 
of a society for the promotion of national education at the West, 
and will remove to Cincinnati as soon as his present official term 
expnes. I think we will give the Devil one kick yet before we 
leave the world. 

Yours ever and truly, 

HOEACE MANN. 



Weentham, Sept. 23, 1846. 
Rev. E. B. Willson. 

My dear Sir, — I have just received your despondmg missive of 
yesterday. I see you are sensitive : you have not got case-hardened 
yet; you have not been rebuffed and neglected, and seen every 
mountebank and hand-organist and monkey-shower and military 
company running away with your audience. I have been accus- 
tomed for years to yield precedence to every puppet-exhibition or 
hurdy-gurdy mendicant ; but I always transmute this discourage- 
ment into encouragement (or stimulus). If people are so indif- 
ferent to the highest of all earthly causes, it only shows how 
much we have yet to do ; and if it is to take a great while to do 



252 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

wliat must be done, then it is time we were about it ; and if it is 
an arduous business, then our coats must go off, and we must ad- 
dress ourselves to the work with corresponding good will. Let us 
convert despair into courage. If you cannot get seventy teachers 
together at a Teachers' Institute in the great County of Worcester, 
I know you will work harder for the cause of common schools as 
long as you live. I shall be grieved at such a spectacle, indeed ; 
but my heart has ached hundreds of tunes before, yet I have in- 
finite faith. It is a part of my religion to believe in the ultimate 
success and triumph of the cause. If it can come in my day, I 
should like it ; but a true disciple works with the same zeal for the 
object of his faith, whether its glorious consummation is to be greeted 
by his own eyes, or whether it is yet the embryon existence of some 
distant century. . . . 

In great haste, yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

West Newton, Feb. 25, 1847. 

My dear Friends, Mr. and Mrs. Combe, — All I can say in 
defence of myself for being what you call a "naughty man" is 
that I have had a conjlict of duties, and that I have postponed the 
performance of those which would have been most agreeable for the 
sake of those which seemed to me most indispensable to the welfare 
of the cause to which I am pledged. " Strike, but hear." 

In the early part of the last season, I prepared another volume 
of our Annual School Abstracts, containing nearly four hundred 
pages. Even before this was completed, I had to go away on a 
tour of Teachers' Institutes (described in my Ninth Keport) , which 
occupied me for seven or eight weeks. On my return, in November, 
I was obliged to sit down and write my Keport, a hundred and 
seventy pages, and cany that and the Report of the Board through 
the press. My correspondence equals all the labor I have enumer- 
ated. I have had the general care and superintendence of the 
erection of two Normal school-buildings, which have been built the 
last season, and are now occupied ; and, what I know will gladden 
your hearts, I have built a house for myself at this place, which we 
came into on Christmas Eve. I have been a wanderer for twenty 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 253 

years ; and, when any one asked me where I lived, I could say, in 
the language of another, " I do not live anywhere; 1 hoard.'''' 
This Arab life I could bear while I was alone ; but, when I had 
"wife and weans " to carry from place to place, it became intoler- 
able. I should have preferred, on many accounts, to live in the 
city ; but so small is my salary, and so considerable the demands 
made upon it in order to carry forward the cause, that it was neces- 
sary to give up the idea of a city residence, or resign my office. 
We have, therefore, put up a shelter at West Newton, ten miles 
from Boston, and within a hundred rods of the West Newton Nor- 
mal School. . . . Just as I was looking for a little relief from the 
pressure of my labors, a child of sin and Satan came out with a 
ferocious orthodox attack upon the Board of Education and myself, 
which I felt moved to answer ; and here is another pretty job of 
work of fifty-six pages. Now, I assure you, it would have been 
vastly more pleasant to have been writing to you and Mrs. Combe, 
and telling you about Mrs. Mann, and little Horace Mann (who is 
three years old to-day) , and little-er George Combe Mann, who has 
a head that would satisfy the most fastidious and exacting phrenolo- 
gist, — I say it would have been vastly more pleasant to do this than 
to be fighting, like St. Paul, the wild beasts at Ephesus. 

I received the " Phrenological Journal," containing your article, 
which I read with great pleasure and profit. ... I should like ex- 
ceedingly well to be made acquainted, from time to time, with what- 
ever promotes the progress of humanity, whether it comes in the 
form of improved education or in any other. How horrible is the 
condition of Ireland ! It pours a bitter ingredient into every meal 
I eat. I had thought, owing to improvements in agriculture and 
commerce, that famines were at an end ; but it seems that misgov- 
ernment can more than cancel all the blessings of science and the 
bounties of Heaven. The policy pursued towards Ireland for the 
last few centuries will be one of the most appalling admonitions to 
future governments to be found in the pages of all history. I hope 
it may lead to such organic changes in the policy of the British 
Government towards that people, as will, in part, compensate for the 
terrible calamity they are suffering, and will prevent the possibility 
of its repetition. Great commiseration is felt in this country for the 



254 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

famishing people. A large committee is now engaged in the city 
of Boston in collecting subscriptions. No report of the amount 
obtained has been yet made ; but I have no doubt it will be in 
some degree worthy of the city, though it must be immensely inade- 
quate to the relief of the sufierers. Bennett Forbes, one of our 
wealthiest men, and a man whose heart is bigger than his purse, has 
offered to take charge of any ship that shall be freighted with relief.* 
Oh, if all the millions we are spending in this execrable Mexican 
4 war could be appropriated to the rehef of suffering, the instniction 
of ignorance, and the reformation of the wicked, what a different 
world we might have ! The money and the talent employed to 
barbarize mankind in war, if expended for education and the promo- 
tion of the arts of peace, would brmg on the millennium at once. 

You know, my dear friends, how incessantly I am engaged. Do 
not be punctilious about return letters. Write me when you can. 
I have no letters that are so acceptable as yours. Keep me advised 
of all that is important ; for I have not time even to read English 
newspapers sufficiently to know what important things are going on. 

Our present Congress closes its session on the 4th of next 

month. The next Congress wiU be a very different body of men. 

For the honor of humanity, they ought to be. My kiudest regards 

to your brother, and to all who do me the honor to inquire after me. 

Ever and tnily yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

West Newton, April 25, 1847. 

My deae Mr. Combe, — Your kind letter of March 24 is before 
me. I leai'n from it that you were, at its date, without intelligence 
from me. You write, too, somewhat despairingly. But why should 
you lack faith 1 Do you not believe in my regard for you, as in a 
law of nature ? While my nature and yours remain unchanged, I 
cannot but have the highest estimation of you, and I cannot 
cease to be grateful; for you have been my benefactor in the 
largest and best sense. By the steamer of March, I sent you not 
only a long letter, but a large parcel, and gave you some account of 

* Mr. Forbes nobly redeemed his promise. — Ed. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 255 

my year's work, so that you might see for yourself that idleness was 
not the cause of my omitting to wiite to you. ... I sent you a 
mighty gi-eat Abstract of School Returns which I had got out, and 
also copies of a controversy, which, in the way of by-play, I had 
had with one of the wild beasts of Ephesus ; and a more untamable 
hyena I do not believe St. Paul ever had to encounter, — once a 
preacher of the annihilation of the wicked, then a Universalist, and 
now a Calvinist of the Old-Testament stamp. In believing in total 
depravity, he only generalizes his own consciousness. . . . Since I 
wrote you before, he has come out with a " Reply," which is worse 
than the others, in a sort of geometrical progression. This I have 
answered in a "Letter" to him, and am now awaiting his next 
movement. I read, with great interest and profit, you.r article 
on education in the " Phrenological Journal; " and it is now some- 
where in the chele of my friends, going about doing good. I have 
also just received the same in tract form. . . . 

There has already been sent to Ireland, from Boston alone, money 
and provisions to the value of a hundred and twenty thousand 
dollars. Mr. Quincy told me he had no doubt it would soon 
amount to a liundred and fifty thousand dollars. This would look 
beautifully on the celestial records, if the Devil had not such a per 
contra of a hixndred millions spent in this infernal Mexican war. 
Still, it is about the first item ever entered to the credit of a nation 
in the books above ; and, as such, it is not only a fact, but a 
promise, — an augury not less than an entry. I wish you to inform 
me what is the estimated sum drawn annually from Ireland by the 
absentee landlords. How different is the character of the Irish 
peasantry or immigrants here from that of the English landlords ! 
The former are sending home amounts of money which are so incred- 
ible that my memory cannot hold them, while the latter are drawing 
the heart's blood out of the country. Will you please also inform 
me what are the revenues of the Church derived from Ireland, and 
spent at home and elsewhere? I also want to obtain the best 
accounts I can of the " ragged schools " in London. I have access 
to the Reviews ; but are there no tracts or pamphlets on the subject ? 
I do not get at the present state of public sentiment in the United 
Kingdom on this all-important question of education. . . . 



256 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

At our last Congressional election, Howe consented to be tbe 
candidate for Congress of tlie anti-slavery and anti-war party. I 
think in so doing he made a great mistake. Any other man would 
have served as a rallying-point as well as he ; and such is the inexo- 
rableness of party discipline, that he at once lost a great portion of 
his well-earned popularity and extensive influence. Pie was pro- 
scribed, and, in a few days after, failed of being elected on the 
school committee, when he might have been but for that misstep. 

I shall leave the babies for Mrs. Mann to write about. Please 
think how much I have to do, and never wait for a letter from me 
as an inducement to write one yourself. 

With kindest regards to Mrs. Combe and all who inquire after me, 

I am yours ever, 

HORACE MANN. 



West Newton, May 22, 1847. 
Rev. T. Parker. 

Dear Sir, — Yours of the 15th inst. was not received until this 
evening. I shall be most happy to meet the friends of a true con- 
servative reform anywhere, and particularly at your house, if my 
engagements will possibly permit. 

The Board of Education, however, are to be met on Wednesday 
next, and may be in session two or three days. I have never been 
able to escape from them and their committees for an hour. If, 
therefore, I do not appear, you will infer that I cannot. 

By a " conservative reform," I mean the removal of vile and rot- 
ten parts from the structure of society, just as far as salutary and 
sound ones can be prepared to take their places. 

Yours very truly, 

H. MANN. 



West Newton, Nov. 14, 1847. 
Mv DEAR Mr. Combe, — I intended to write you by each of the 
last steamers, but was absent from home ; and, when I attend Insti- 
tutes, I have no time nor thought for any thing else. Our cause is 
flourishing. Other States are commg into the ranks of improve- 
ment. New Hampshire has appointed a school commissioner. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 257 

Public sentiment in Rhode Island, under the administration of Mr. 
Barnard as school commissioner, is revolutionized. Vermont has 
established a Board of Education ; and even the democratic State 
of Maine has, within the last twelve months, organized a Board 
nearly on the same principles, and precisely with the same objects, 
as Massachusetts. All these are so many buttresses to hold our 
fabric firm. I feel great interest in the movement in Maine, and 
am going down there to spend a few days, to use a flesh-brush upon 
their long torpid backs. I trust we shall make this a revolution 
that will not go backward. 

We have not heard from you since your return from the Conti- 
nent. Our last letter was from }<lr. Cox, announcing the death of 
your brother, that benefactor of mankind. How many people will 
be better and happier because he has lived ! This is his noble 
monument. To go about doing good is religion. In ages yet to 
come, he will live upon earth ; and his wise precepts, the repre- 
sentatives of himself which he has left upon earth, will "go about 
doing good." We have been greatly interested in your pamphlets, 
and in the additional matter contained in the new edition of the 
" Constitution of Man." The citadels of bigotry must eventually 
be crumbled under such missiles; but it is a long contest, and 
neither you nor I shall see the victory but by an eye of faith. 
But never mind. It is the evidence of a true disciple, that he can 
labor as faithfully, though triumph is a thousand years oif, as though 
it were to be won to-morrow, and he already heard the note of prep- 
aration. 

Please give me all practicable information about British affairs. 
The history of this age will hereafter stand out prominently in the 
annals of the race. I would that it were more worthy I 

With undiminished affection for yourself and Mrs. Combe, 

I am, as ever, truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

During all his educational life, Mr. Mann had never 
allowed himself one day of pure recreation. If he made a 
visit to a friend, some educational errand was sure to lie 
in ambush, or some plea to be entered for the furtherance 

17 



258 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

of his cherished plans. He had not the art of lying fal- 
low, and thus gathering new strf^.ngth for labor. His love 
of children was the only natural outlet for his native hi- 
larity ; and this blessed resource was all that saved him 
when the outside world seemed bent upon harassing 
him. He never could turn his back upon them : others 
had to defend him from their loving inroads, hunt them 
in his study, and pick them off his writing-desk, and 
out of the back of his chair, where they would be found 
perched. No play was so charming as that in which 
he partook. He did not know how to tell fairy-stories, 
nor approve of them, unless allegorically beautiful ; but 
he could bring the wonders of Nature within the com- 
pass of their admiring little souls. It came to be neces- 
sary to make a rule about taking turns upon his knee ; 
and they learned to watch for the occasions when he laid 
down his pen, or was alone in the often-sought study, to 
which all the schoolmasters and school-committee men, 
educators and would-be educators, earnest inquirers or 
malcontents, had free access. To "tell papa" became a 
necessity ; for his sympathy was never wanting, whether 
in joy or sorrow. To cultivate the religious character of 
his children, irrespective of dogmas, was his aim, and he 
knew it could not be cultivated too early ; but he so 
dreaded for them the painful impressions stamped upon 
his own young heart, and he was so sure that terror must 
be the first emotion excited by the knowledge of God, that 
it was long before he could consent that his eldest child 
should know of the existence of a higher Power. When 
the inevitable moment came, and the child's cravings for 
that knowledge could no longer be set aside ; when he 
passionately demanded " who made him " or it (for every 
thing was a mystery without this solution), and would not 
be denied, — his father walked the room in the deepest 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 259 

agitation : but when be perceived that immediately the 
heart and intellect gave--a recognizing consent to the con- 
ception of a loving heavenly Parent, who made father 
and mother, and the butterfly^ whose mysterious evolution 
from the chrysalis was the special object of inquiry at 
the moment ; and that the little boy needed no further ex- 
planation and no other satisfaction, — -tears of joy relieved 
him of his painful anxiety, and father and child had from 
that time a never-ending topic of mutual interest in tra- 
cing God through his love and works. It was the happiest 
of thoughts to him, that his children could make God a 
sharer of their joys, and an object of personal affection 
and confidence. 

Suddenly, owing to the death of Mr. John Quincy 
Adams, came the demand for his services as represen- 
tative to the National Congress. It was an important 
crisis in the cause of liberty ; for slavery was then to be 
stemmed, or allowed to extend itself indefinitely ; and a 
champion as fearless and persistent as Mr. Adams was 
needed in his place. 

At first, Mr. Mann could hardly, by an effort of the 
imagination, place himself in any other position than that 
which he occupied: but, on reflection, he saw that the new 
ofiice had bearings upon the great cause, which allied it 
closely to its interests ; and he allowed himself to be per- 
suaded. 

His hope of seeing a Department of Public Instruc- 
tion in the National Government was, however, not real- 
ized. 

His friends were glad to have him leave his educational 
labors for a time ; for his plans were so large, and had so 
expanded in his hands, that no man could execute them 
without suicidal efforts. He could plead the necessity of 
more assistance for his successor, but was not the man to 



260 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

beg it for himself; feeling, as he did, that there was but a 
very partial appreciation of the work yet to be done. 

During the first session, he did not gain much rest ; for 
he still retained the office of Secretary of the Massachu- 
setts Board of Education, pending the choice of a suc- 
cessor: and his friends. Dr. Howe and Mr. Sumner, urged 
him to undertake the defence of Drayton and Sayres, 
owners of the little sloop " Pearl," who had allowed some 
fugitives from the District to escape in their vessel.* 
They knew he would not make it a technical matter 
merely, but would improve the opportunity to enunciate 
great principles which he and they had at heart. They 
did not urge him, as men often did, to do that which 
they would not have done themselves. He felt the kin- 
dling influence of that spirit in them which burned with- 
in himself, — an unquenchable flame of patriotism, and 
love of justice ; a desire to hold up his testimony against 
the great sin of his country. They all stood alike ready 
to sacrifice every personal consideration to the cause. 
Not even friends could urge selfish claims in the pres- 
ence of such sentiments as animated their conferences 
upon tliese topics, though the domestic calamity was not 
to be lightly estimated. Indeed, the light of the house 
went out when he left it. One little boy planted himself 
upon the hall-stairs every day, for a month, to " wait for 
papa," and could hardly be torn from his post ; and 
another would open the daguerrotyped likeness, and 
weep over it, saying, " How beautiful he is ! " To be 
"little papas" to the new-born babe was the most grate- 
ful form of consolation ; and the postscript to the boys 
in the daily letter home was seldom wanting. They 
were unwilling to see other people sit at his desk or in 

* The particulars of this case and the argument to the jury will appear in a 
future volume. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 261 

his special chair. He had taken care of every one, in- 
stead of allowing himself to be taken care of. The 
house had been furnished by his taste, and he had had a 
special interest in all its arrangements. Even the flower- 
beds knew his shaping hand, and it had trained the vines 
and rose-bushes over porch and summer-house. When 
his absence became intolerable, the children were told 
that he had gone to help make the laws that would 
make people do right ; and, as they had never known 
him to do wrong, he remained ever to them a near prov- 
idence, stimulating every aspiration, and feeding their 
hunger for knowledge and the means of knowledge. 



Washington, April 26, 1848. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — ... I wi'ite you this from a seat in 
Congress ; a place wliieh, a few weeks ago, it would have seemed as 
impossible for me to fill as to be the successor of Louis Philippe. 
Strange events have sent me here. I have time to-day to write 
but a single word more, to say, that, wherever I am, I shall never 
cease to be your friend and admirer, and to acknowledge my in- 
debtedness to you for the great principles of thought which have 
helped me on in the world. ... I am writing this during an earnest 
debate ; and, if I delay, I shall fail of sending it off in season for 
the steamer which goes from Boston on Saturday. Mj best re- 
gards to Mrs. Combe, and beheve me ever and truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, April 28, 1848. 
Rev. D. Wight, Jun. 

Dear Sir, — Your letter of the 25th inst., this day received, has 

found me in the midst of very pressing engagements; for, for a 

few weeks, I have assumed new duties, without being released 

from my old ones. This pressure of business, however, counsels 

me to promptness, instead of delay : I therefore give you a brief 

and perhaps a too hasty answer. 



262 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Some of the questions you have propounded, I regard as very 
simple and plain ; while some of them might lead to theoretical 
difficulties, if not to practical ones. I regard it as sufficient, at 
present, to take a practical view of the subject. 

You ask whether "literary qualifications" alone are sufficient 
for a teacher. I answer, that, in my opinion, they are not. Moral 
qualifications, and ability to inculcate and enforce the Christian 
virtues, I consider to be even of greater moment than literary 
attainments. 

You ask, again, whether school committees are bound to approve 
Roman Catholics. I do not touch the cases of "Jews, Mahomet- 
ans, Pagans," &c. ; for I presume you have no such cases in hand. 
You also further ask what has been the practice in Massachusetts, 
so far as I know, on this point. 

The city of Lowell presents the most striking case that has come 
to my knowledge. There, several years ago, a very intelligent 
committee, consisting of clergymen and laymen, entered into an 
arrangement with the Catholic priests and parents, by which it was 
agreed that the teachers of their children should be Catholics. 
They were, however, to be subject to examination, and their schools 
to visitation, by the committee, in the same manner as other teach- 
ers and schools. I have not time to enter into details ; but you 
may find a minute and interesting account of the whole proceed- 
ing, as prepared by one of the school committee of Lowell, in the 
last April number of the " New-Englander." I refer you to this as 
more particular and satisfactory than any account I can give in a 
letter. 

But this was a case where Catholic teachers were provided for 
Catholic children. I know no case in Massachusetts where Catho- 
lics have been brought fonvard as teachers of Protestant schools. 

But as to the true interest and meaning of the law, premising 
that I have no authority to declare what the law is, still, when 
asked by a gentleman, from proper motives, what my opinion of the 
law is, I am free to express it. It is but an opinion. The school 
committee have the sole authority in the matter ; and they must 
discharge their duty on their responsibilities, as I or any other man 
must do on ours. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 263 

I do not see how, according to our law, a man is to be disfran- 
chised, or held to be disqualified for the office of a teacher, merely 
because he is a Catholic. If his manners and his attainments are 
good, if his conduct is exemplary, his character pure, and he has 
ability to inculcate justice, a sacred regard to truth, the principles 
of piety, and those other excellences which the Constitution enu- 
merates, can you reject him because you understand him to be a 
Catholic ? Would Pere la Salle, Fenelon, or Bishop Cheverus, be 
disqualified, by the fact of their faith alone, to keep a school in 
Massachusetts ? 

In any case of this kind, however, there are some other points 
which I should think it lawful to consider and act upon. For in- 
stance, I have always and under all circumstances held that the 
Bible is a book which should be introduced into our schools. Pro- 
testant parents have an undoubted right to have their children 
read the Protestant version, and be instructed from it. If I had 
reason to suppose the candidate to be a Catholic, I should feel 
perfectly authorized to inquire, and to know, whether, if approved, 
he would use the Bible in school in such a way as the committee 
should direct ; whether he would use the Protestant version for a 
Protestant school ; and whether, also, he should not feel under ob- 
ligation to abstain, on all occasions, from obtruding his peculiar or 
sectarian views upon the scholars. I should want security on these 
and similar points. I could not construe our law and constitution 
to say, that, because a man is a Catholic, therefore he cannot incul- 
cate and simphfy justice, virtue, the principles of piety, &c. And 
again : if the district (as you suggest in this instance) has been so 
gi'ossly delinquent as to choose an immoral and profane man as 
prudential committee, I should not regret to see them punished in 
any way that would not harm the children. 

These, my dear sir, are my general views. If I had more time, 
I might be more explicit and guarded, and perhaps suggest some 
further limitations or qualifications of my opinion ; but, rather than 
delay, I have given you at once what, according to the best of my 
knowledge, is a true exposition of our law, without raising the 
question whether the law is right or wrong. If this opinion seems 



264 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

to you unsound, you had best go to some counsellor on the sub- 
ject, or raise the question for the courts. 

H. MANN. 

Washington, June 9, 1848. 

. . . We have just heard tliat Gen. Taylor has been nominated 
for President. If so, it has been done by the combined force 
of slavery and war. The principles on which all the best men of 
the North profess to act — the great principles for the advance- 
ment of civilization — have been sacrificed to sustain the war-fever 
and the slavery-grip. I do not feel as if I could stand this : at 
any rate, I trust there will be a movement at the North which 
shall look to other objects, which shall be led only by men who 
inscribe peace and liberty on their banners. I have almost ceased 
to have any of the feelings of a mere politician; and, situated 
as I am, — I mean, as I still fill the office of Secretary of the Board 
of Education, — if I come out at first, and take any leading or 
prominent part in politics, I shall be accused of political interference 
through the influence of my office ; a thing which, as you know, I 
have for so many years tried to keep clear of. I feel, therefore, 
unpleasantly hampered at the present time. Were it not for the 
necessity thus laid upon me, I should be inchned to heroic 
measures. 

Washington, June 10, 1848. 

There will Ifc gi-cat enthusiasm for Taylor at the South, and 
great coldness at the North, — in some instances, aversion. It will 
play mischief with Wliig politics in Massachusetts. I have a diffi- 
cult position. I shall try to keep my conscience ; though, in so 
doing, I may lose my office. 

Washington, June 13, 1848. 

It is evident there will be great opposition to Gen. Taylor in the 
North. This will lead to a feud among the Whigs themselves ; so 
that they will have to fight, not only the Democrats, but each other. 
Our district will doubtless be in trouble. I may lose my office ; 
but I will try to preserve my integrity. 

The ground on which the nomination for Taylor goes is not with- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 265 

out plausibility. They say we must turn out the present Adminis- 
tration at any rate ; that, if Taylor be not supported, there is a 
worse evil. On the other hand, it is said we have yielded to the 
demands of the South again and again ; that they always ask for 
once more ; and that we may yield and yield forever, and still they 
will require us to do it once more. This conflict will probably dis- 
tract my district more than any other in the State ; and there is 
no State that will suffer so much as Massachusetts. 

Washington, June 24, 1848. 

My dear Sumner, — I think you are rather the hardest taskmas- 
ter since Pharaoh ; and I am not sure I ought to stop with that old 
Egyptian scamp. 

You know I am not only Acting Secretary of the Massachusetts 
Board of Education, and now keeper of a sort of intelligence-office 
on certain subjects for the whole country (in which capacities I have 
literally had thirty letters to open and answer in a day since I have 
been here) , but you also know that I came into the class here when 
the other members of it had read the book half through ; so that I 
had the back lessons all to make up. You also wanted me to under- 
take the defence of the "Pearl " prisoners, who will be arraigned next 
week, probably on Wednesday, — on how many indictments, do you 
think? I expect 245 (two hundred and forty-five). I shall wiite 
ao-ain when I am certain. You have been drumming me up for a 
speech in the House, and now you want me to go to Worcester. Is 
not all this a little too bad ? 

Besides all this, if I am not greatly mistaken, you are calling me 
to account for not plunging at once, with the toga of my secretaiy- 
ship on, into the Taylor war. Now, I have written at length to 
H about this latter point, and you may see the letter. Under- 
standing this whole matter, I should like to know what you and 
others think about it. 

Truly yours, HORACE MANN. 

Washington, June 28, 1848. 
The District Attorney is making ready for a fearful amount of 
indictments against Drayton and Sayres, — so many, that, if the 



266 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

prisoners should be convicted on all of them, it will require an 

imprisonment of hundreds of years to expiate the deed. . . . There 

must be a tremendous re-action at some time — perhaps not till after 

our time — against the oppression and abuses which are committed 

to uphold slaveiy. 

Washington, D.C, April 24, 1848. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I assure you I was right glad to see the super- 
scription of a letter in your beautiful handwriting. Now, do not 
laugh at my adjective ; for beauty, you know, is in the eye of the 
beholder. . . . 

I find myself as comfortably situated here as I could expect ; but 
I have not the slightest expectation of ever feeling any attachment 
for the position. I have no idea that I can make my efibrts tell on 
the body with which I am associated. From present appearances, 
I have not run away from correspondence on schools and education, 
but into it. I may have an opportunity to do an unseen work in 
this behalf, — even greater than I have ever done before. I have 
seen enough abeady to give me even a deeper conviction of the 
necessity and indispensableness of education than I ever had before. 
It is the only name whereljy a repubUc can be saved. If I ever 
return to the field, as I hope to, I shall return with new motives 
for exertion and zeal. 

We. have had a great excitement here for a few days. The 
South are on fire. They like to sympathize with revolution so long 
as it will stay three thousand miles off"; but revolution at home is 
to be decided by different principles. They have furnished some 
admirable texts for Northern men to preach from ; and according to 
the gospel these promulgate will be the disciples they will make. 

Love to madam. 

Ever and truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, D.C, April 26, 1848- 
Dr. Jarvis. 

Dear Sir, — I acknowledge with great pleasure the receipt of 

yours of the 22d instant ; and what welcome news you impart 

respecting the progi-ess of school-matters in Dorchester ! An appro- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 267 

priation of $10,000 + 4,000 + 10,000 in a single year, when 
last year you raised but a little more than $6,000, if I remember 
rightly ! This is triumph, and reward for all your labors. . . . 

And now, my dear su', you do not know how home-siek and 
State-sick I am ; that is, how I long to get back among the boys 
and girls of the Massachusetts schools. One consideration only 
helps to reconcile me to the change. I am satisfied that I was on 
the point of breaking down remedilessly when I came away. If my 
heart was not growing hard, my brain was growing soft. I begin 
to feel a little better. If my health is restored, I shall be back in 
the vineyard again before long. The present crisis about our new 
territory, — is it not enough to wean anybody from home ? 

For all the kind things you are pleased to express, I can only 
say that they point to what I would do, rather than to any thing I 
have done : indeed, what I have done falls so far short of what should 
have been done, that I feel something of an emotion of shame when- 
ever the subject is called to my mind. . . . 

Believe me most truly and sincerely yours, 

H. M. 



Washington, July 18, 1848. 

We are getting along very slowly. There is much business in 
the hopper, only a little of which will ever be ground out. It is 
impossible to tell what will be the fate of the territorial bills. The 
future welfare and greatness of the Territories has very little to do 
with the question. The fate of millions and millions is to be voted 
upon as it is thought the temporary and evanescent interests of 
politicians will be best subserved. " Who shall be President?" is 
deemed of more consequence than whether there shall be millions 
of slaves in the West in each generation, and a thousand or milUon 
generations of these. I see, every day, more and more, the neces- 
sity of the great work of education ; and were I young, or had I 
my old strength again, nothing should keep me from that work of 
works. How different this Grovernment would be if there were any 
coronal region belonging to its sensorium ! 



268 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

Washington, July 29, 1848. 

The celebrated Compromise Bill, on the subject of slavery in the 
Territories, came to the House yesterday, and was laid upon the table 
— that is, to sleep forever — by a vote of 112 to 98. The major- 
ity represents the antislavery interest in the House. It was a 
Scene of absorbing interest. The house was more full than at any 
other time since I have been here. Usually, when taking the yeas 
and nays, the House is like Bedlam. No -one cares for any thing 
but to give his own vote in turn. But yesterday it was still as a 
church. Every man wanted to know how every other man voted. 
The South has had a fieiy dispensation this Congress. Speech is 
getting to be free here, and they have been coerced into some de- 
cency and deference. 

Washington, Aug. 5, 1848. 
Kev. S. J. May. 

My dear Sir, — I thank; you for your letter of the 2d inst. , in 
which I find so much new proof of your old partiality. The 
speech you so kindly refer to, I think has produced more effect 
than any other of my educational writings ; which is to be attributed, 
not to its greater power (for I think it inferior to most of what I 
have said on this subject before) , but solely to the fact that it was 
said in Congress, and by a member of Congress, whom I find to be 
a very different man, even though he be the same, from a mere Sec- 
retary of a Board of Education. It was very attentively listened 
to ; and some members from slave States came to me immediately 
after, and from civility, or other motive, offered me their congratula- 
tions. I do not hear that it is doing any harm in the way of exas- 
peration or otherwise. I have just received a note from an entire 
stranger, — a Virginian born, — in which he says he, now and here- 
after, goes for " free soil " in new Territories, and for the annihila- 
tion of slavery where it exists. Excuse this appearance of egotism 
to an old and most valued friend. 

You go to Buffalo, then. I have but one word to say. If you 

have any regard for the purity and moral strength of the Great Party 

4 that is to be, don't put such a corrupt man as Van Buren at the 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 269 

head of it. Just so certain as you do, the cause itself is tainted 

and corrapted. 

Ever and truly your friend, 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, Aug. 5, 1848. 

We had a verdict of " guilty " returned yesterday against Dray- 
ton. The jury were in consultation twenty-one hours. We un- 
derstand that those who stood out for the prisoner were at last 
induced to surrender by the fear of losing all patronage and custom 
in the city if they refused to convict. But this is not the end of it. 
We shall try to set the verdict aside on what seem to us good 
grounds. 

Auff. 7. Notwithstanding we have reverses, yet I think the law 
is on our side ; and we mean so far to get the principles on record, 
that, if we fail here, we can get the decision reversed in a higher 
court. I am in a good work; so do not feel uneasy about me. 
Maybe it will turn out to be a great one. . . . 

I am told that public opinion in this District is undergoing a 
change. 

Aug. 10. Ah ! the verdict was against us again yesterday. It 
seems impossible here, at the present time, to have an impartial trial. 
No jury, in a free State, would have convicted Drayton in either 
of the cases. No jury would have remained in consultation half an 
hour, without acquitting him. We must struggle hard yet. They 
have not yet got him hopelessly in their clutches. 

Washington, Aug. 11, 1848. 

We began yesterday with the first case against Sayres. It looks 
better than the others; and I do not see how it is possible, even with 
the most prejudiced jury and afore-determined judges, to convict 
him. But I may not estimate the force of prejudice and predeter- 
mination aright. If we were in any Christian land, I should be 
sure of success. 

But we have done a glorious work in the House to-day. A few 
days ago, we passed a bill for the establishment of a territorial govern- 
ment in Oregon. It went to the Senate, and they amended it by 



270 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

adding the Missouri-compromise provision to it; that is, that all 
territory north of 36° 30' north latitude should be free territory, 
and all south of it slave territory, as they desked, — this line to 
extend to the Pacific Ocean. 

When the bill came back to the House, we voted to non-concur 
in the amendment of the Senate ; and, to the surprise of everybody, 
we had thirty-nine majority. All the Northern Democrats, so many 
of whom have heretofore voted with the Southern Democrats and 
Southern "Whigs on slavery questions, — all excepting four, — voted 
with us. They can no longer stand the fiery furnace of public in- 
dignation on the subject of slavery. It is one of the most glorious 
events that has happened this century. All our discussions on the 
subject of slavery during this session have tended to it. 

Saturday Morning. All ready for the fight. This case will go 
to the jury to-day. I do not know what will come next. If the 
Government tries another of these cases, we cannot get through till 
Tuesday, or perhaps Wednesday ; so that we may be separated a 
day or two longer. But hereafter it may give us pleasure to re- 
member all this. 

Aug. 13. Verdict of " Not guilty ! " The fight in Drayton's 
case helped this one very much. 

We went back to the Senate to see if they would recede from 
their amendment to the Oregon Bill. They debated it a good part 
of the day yesterday, and all night, and took the question about 
nine this morning. There was a majority oi four for receding. So 
the Oregon Territory will be established with the slavery restriction 
in it. Is not this worth coming to Washington to see ? It is a 
great triumph, and the first upon which we can really rely. The 
days of each of the four members who voted against us in the House 
will probably be ended thereby, politically. 

Washington, Aug. 14, 1848. 

Drayton has a wife and children in Philadelphia. Sayres has a 
wife : I do not know whether he has children. I went yesterday 
to bid Drayton good-by in his jail. He was firm and collected, re- 
solved to abide his fate. Sayres must remain till December, at any 
rate. Do I think my fate hard "? Let me compare it with theirs. I 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 271 

feel in this case as if I were not working for Drayton and Sayres 
alone, but for the whole colored race. Is it not clearly right that I 
should stay and help these men, who have no chance of seeing their 
homes for months, and possibly not for years ? I cannot believe, 
besides, but this trial is to have an important influence on the 
subject of slavery in this District. We are quietly and silently 
making thunderbolts, which will by and by be hurled at the heads 
of the proslavery men here. 

Aug. 17. I hoped to be able to send you the verdict of the juiy 
to-day ; but I am disappointed in this. 

Mr. Carlisle made a most complete and beautiful closing argu- 
ment on our side yesterday. It was then the District Attorney's 
duty to address the jury, who would then retire to consult and give 
their verdict. 

But Mr. Key asked for a few minutes' delay, and then said he 
had such a severe pain in his head, that he could not go on with the 
argument, and moved the court to postpone the trial till this morn- 
ing. This the judge did ; for he does every thing against the prisoner, 
and nothing in his favor. So we lost nearly the whole day. How 
painful this was to me, I cannot tell you. The truth is, as I be- 
lieve, the District Attorney is getting sick of his infernal cases, and 
will make use of any pretext to get rid of them at the present time ; 
that is, postpone them to another court. 

Whst Newton, Sept. 22, 1848. 

My dear Mr. May, — ... I hope you do not despair of the race, 
though you write so despondingly. Probably I think quite as 
little of Congress, intellectually and morally, as you do : still I 
trust they will never repeat some of the wicked things they have 
done. I certainly agree with you, that schools will be found to be 
the way that God has chosen for the reformation of the world. ■^ 
Somebody has said, Grod is never in a hurry. We are ; and there- 
fore the ameliorations of society seem to go on so slowly. It is not 
by any one miraculous blaze of light that the dark paths of earth 
are to be at once illumined, but slowly will the day-star creep up, 
and the sun after the day-star. I think more progress was made 



272 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

during the last session of Congress, in favor of antislavery, than 
during any ten Congresses before ; and it is not only progress, but 
momentum, or headway, which will help forward through another 
stage. There are many people among the Southerners who are all 
ready to become openly hostile to the institution. They have been 
made clamorous in its defence by the violence and denunciation of 
Northern abolitionists. The first thing is to get their ear, their at- 
tention ; and this never can be done by railing. Anathema and 
vituperation make them brace themselves up against conviction ; 
and they act as the chambermaid did, who said to her mistress, 
" The more you ring, the more I won't come." 

As to my present position, you will probably see by the papers 
of this week that I am almost compelled to assume a new attitude. 
My intimation not to be again a candidate for Congress did not 
proceed upon the supposition of my continuing Secretary of the 
Board. I have come to the conclusion that it is best for me and 
for the cause that I should retire from that post, — not from my 
zeal or works in the cause itself, but from an official relation to it. 
My purpose was to be a free man next 4th of March. But my 
movement to get out of this office seems to threaten to get me into 
it; for both conventions this week, the "Free Soil" and the 
"Whig," have unanimously nominated me for re-election. So, if I 
am chosen, I must go again. 

WAsniNGTON, Dec. 2, 1848. 

I had the most confident expectations that we should get through 
with Drayton's cases to-day ; but yesterday, Mr. Bradley, a lawyer 
on the opposite side, spoke five mortal hours, and did not get 
through even then. I hope he will finish to-day, and then Mr. 
Carlisle will speak. I wish you could hear him ! He is a young 
man, rather small, but beautiful, dignified, and gentlemanly; the 
best-natured fellow that ever was; of Irish descent, and full of 
Irish fire ; polished in his diction ; imaginative, poetic, and withal 
an excellent lawyer, — so much so, that there is always a solid terra 
jirma of good sense for all his lofty flowers and magnolias to grow 
out of. He contests a point of law with the judges as if he had 
devoted himself whoUy to law. He retorts upon an assailant as if 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 273 

he had spent his days among men of elegant conversation, and his 
nights in regaling his mind over the best literary works ; and he is 
as quick in his susceptibility to generous sentiments as if he had 
been brought up by the Sisters of Charity. 

Washington, Dec. 28, 1848. 

I think the country is to witness, or rather experience, serious 
times. Interference with slavery will excite civil commotion at the 
South. Still it is best to interfere. Now, when we have a South- 
ern man and a military man at the head of the Grovemment, is the 
time to see whether the Union is a rope of sand, or a band of steel. 
It is not a life at all congenial to me. The great question of 
freedom or slavery is the only one that would keep me here. 

Washington, Jan. 9, 1849. 

Do you mean, by the "present doings of South Carolina," the 
measures which the Southern senators and representatives here are 
adopting to overawe and frighten the North from making free Terri- 
tories and a free District of Columbia ? If so, then you already 
must know what I think of them. I will not say those movements 
are treasonable ; but they are quite as treasonable as the old Hart- 
ford Convention, which all friends to the country condemned. They 
are to have their adjourned meeting on Monday evening next ; and 
I think the movement will be defeated. It will be embarrassed, 
at any rate. But to let you into the whole secret of the movement 
would be very much like telling little H. about the wickedness of 
men ; and I have not time to do this to-day. 

Jan. 15. 

There is great commotion here in political matters. To-night the 
Southern Convention, called to see what measures the South will 
take on the subject of slavery, are to meet. An address has been 
prepared by Mr. Calhoun, which is said to be in the highest degree 
inflammatory. It is thought here, by many of the most intelligent 
men, that Mr. Calhoun is resolved on a dissolution of the Union. 
Many of the Democrats also are playing into the hands of the South, 
because they desire to break up the Whig party ; that is, to dis- 
sever the Northern and Southern branches of it. 

18 



274 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Jan. 16 

I sat up last night to hear the result of the Convention, which 
did not break up till midnight. Mr. Calhoun's report was recom- 
mitted, which is equivalent to a defeat. The Southern Democrats 
went with him ; the Southern Whigs went against him : so that 
politics helped to modify the course of both, even in regard to 
slavery. It is considered a triumph for the friends of the Union, 
and a quasi triumph against the Southern machinations to protect 
slavery. 

Washington, Feb. 4, 1849. 

A supposed fraud on the part of the President, in relation to the 
treaty with Mexico, has been discovered ; and if it turns out as is 
apprehended, — that is, if he has not some answer which we can- 
not now conceive of, — he has been guilty of one of the most high- 
handed atrocities ever committed by any ruler of a civilized people. 
But I do not allow myself to form an opinion until I hear what the 
evidence is. 

Feb. 5. 

We are having a very interesting debate to-day on the subject 
of the treaty which the President ratified with Mexico. It is a 
very serious affair. The President is in a tight place. He wiU 
find it difficult to extricate himself. It will lead to much fiiture 
action. 

Feb. 7, 1849. 

I rejoice that this Congi'ess is drawing to a close. I shall breathe 
easier on the slavery question as the 4th of March draws nigh. 
A strong proslavery effort is making. The plan is to invite the 
inhabitants of the new Territory to form a State constitution. If 
this succeeds, then the argument will be, that Congress must receive 
them, let their constitution be what it will, whether prohibiting 
slavery or not. If Cahfornia were to form a State constitution of 
her own will, she would doubtless put an antislavery restriction in 
it ; but, if we ask her to come, it will be expected that we shall take 
her as she comes. On this point, there will be a struggle before the 
close of the session. If we can weather this cape, we shall go out, 
apparently, into a comparatively tranquil sea. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 275 

Washington, Feb. 20,. 1849. 

We had a decision yesterday in court ; and it was, as I expected 
it would be, in our favor. This gives Drayton and Sayres a new 
trial, and under much better circumstances than before. It was 
gratifying to have the court to which we appealed demolish, one 
after another, the abominable decisions by which the judge, in our 
trials last summer, decided against us, and sought to secui-e a con- 
viction of the prisoner. I struggled against his nefarious conduci 
like a man struggling for his life ; but it was in vain then. It if 
not in vain now. 

Feb. 21, 

It is just a year ago to-day since Mr., Adams fell in this House. 
. . . Yesterday and to-day we are striving to get at a bill, which is 
on the calendar, in favor of abolishing the slave-trade in the District 
of Columbia. The South are playing shy. 

Feb. 22. 

The President made a lame defence in regard to the treaty with / 
Mexico. But nothing will be done about it, except to scold: for our 
people will never give up the gold ; and, even if the gold were not 
there, they never would give up the land. 

Washington, Feb. 27, 1849. 

My dear Sumneh, — Mr. Palfrey made a grand speech last 
night. About half of it was in answer to the speech of Gov. 
M'Dowell of Virginia, — the most elegant and captivating speech 
made during the session, but in which some questions were put to 
Massachusetts which it required a scholar and a Christian to answer. 
Mr. Palfrey answered them all most beautifully. 

We are now taking the yeas and nays on the California Teiri- 

torial Bill. There has been a vehement effort to defeat it, or rather 

to defeat the " Jefferson Proviso " in it. I will give you the result, 

if we ascertain it before the mail closes, which will be in a few 

minutes. 

In great haste, yours as ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

Bill passed, — ayes, 126; noes, 87. GrLORious ! 



276 LIFE OF HORACE MANIT. 

March 3. 

Before I write you again, the question of freedom or slavery for 
the Territories will be settled. There is a bare chance, if the decision 
is against us, that it may be recalled by the nest Congress. I have 
great fears as to the result. We sat until between eleven and 
twelve last night. It is one to-night. We shall probably sit nearly 
all night to-night ; and that winds up the concern for good or for ill. 
I am not without hope ; but my fears preponderate. Most others 
would say, " Grod save us ! " but I believe he will let us save or 
pink ourselves. 

March 4, 1849. 

The Republic is safe. We commenced our session yesterday at 
eleven, and were adjourned this morning at seven. It was a 
tumultuous night, but it was fought bravely ; and the victory is 
ours. The slave-party, and those of the Democrats who act with 
it, have wi'ought from the beginning of the session to provide the 
way for bringing in the new Territories as States, without any re- 
striction as to slavery. Not succeeding in getting any of their 
regular bills for that purpose through Congress, they started the 
project, a week or two ago, of attaching a section to the Civil and 
Diplomatic Bill, — a bill that provides for defraying all the ex- 
penses of the civil departments of Government the current year. 
It was utterly incongruous in this bill : but they knew the bill must 
be passed, or the wheels of Grovernment must stop ; so they fastened 
it on to compel its opponents to vote for it. This was in the Senate. 
The House did not agree to it. A committee of conference was 
appointed. That committee could not agree : so the question came 
back to the House ; and on that we had the contest. It is impos- 
sible to detail the manoeuvres and tactics by which the respective 
parties conducted the strife. At last, however, at about two o'clock 
this morning, we succeeded in attaching an amendment which vir- 
tually took the slavery out of it. It was then sent to the Senate; 
and there, after two or three hours' hard fighting, they yielded ; 
being satisfied that they could not bring the House to their terms, 
and being unwilUng to take the responsibility of stopping the wheels 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 277 

of Government. There -were two regular fist-fights in the. House, 
in one of which blood flowed freely ; and one in the Senate. 
Some of the members were fiercely exasperated ; and had the North 
been as ferocious as the South, or the Whigs as violent as the Demo- 
crats, it is probable there would have been a general melee. But 
all this depends upon the men. I walked round the House a 
number of times ; conversed with all the Southern slaveholders 
whom I knew, and, by introduction, with some I had not known ; 
and had not an uncivil word. I never felt farther removed from the 
spirit of fighting in my life. At last, at seven this morning, Mr. 
Winthrop made an elegant farewell address in answer to a vote 
of thanks ; and we all ran. 

West Newton, April 12, 1849. 
To George Combe, Esq. 

My deae Mr. Combe, — Silence is not forgetfulness. ... On 
Feb. 23, 1848, Mr. J. Q. Adams died, struck down in his 
seat on the floor of Congi'ess. Having recently moved into the 
Congressional District whicli he represented, I was nominated as 
his successor in the following March ; and, on the thnd day of 
April, was elected. 

Can I justify myself to you for having laid down an educational 
office, and taken up a political one ? I can truly say, that, on my 
part, the change was an involuntary one. After the nomination was 
made, I prepared an answer, peremptorily declining it. But 
various collateral incidents and accidental causes led a council of my 
best friends to decide that I should reverse my purpose. Among 
other considerations, I think a regard for my health was the most 
decisive ; and, if my health or life were worth any thing, they were 
right. I now verily believe that another year, without aid and 
without relaxation, would have closed my labors upon earth. On 
the 13th of April, I went to Washington. Soon after, I resigned 
my Secretaryship ; but the Board, not being prepared to appoint a 
successor, requested me to continue to discharge its duties till the 
close of the year. This I consented to do, especially as it would 
afford me an opportunity to make a final Report, — a peroration to 
the rest. Thus, instead of being a relay, I was made to run 



278 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

double stages, — to perform the duties of a member in Congress, 
and by correspondence to carry on the Secretaryship. . . . 

You may have heard of an attempt to carry off seventy-five slaves 
in one night, in a sloop from the city of Washingt,on, which occurred 
last spring. It caused the fiercest excitement; and the prisoners, 
who were taken, three in number, were doomed to destruction. I 
was importuned and over-persuaded to undertake their defence. 
Not a lawyer in the city of Washington would argue the question 
of the constitutionality of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
I longed to do it. The trial came on in Aug-ust ; and for twelve 
successive days, in a Tophet called a court-room, with the ther- 
mometer seldom lower than ninety, I fought against as abominable 
a spirit as ever disgi'aced a Jeflfrys or a Coke. The atmosphere 
was so impregnated by the excitement without, that it became, 
to a gi'eat extent, a non-conductor of humanity and reason to the 
jury within. One of the prisoners, however, escaped entirely ; 
one was convicted of an offence punishable by fine only, with 
imprisonment until paid ; and the third was convicted on the 
indictments, sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on each, while 
thirty-nine indictments for a similar offence were continued. Ex- 
ceptions were taken to numerous rulings of the court, which were 
argued before the Appellate Court in November; and all the judg- 
ments were set aside. Now we are to begin de novo, but under 
much better auspices; for many of the abominable legal doctrines 
of the court below have been annulled. But I dwell too long on 
this. 

After the 1st of September, on my return home, I had all my 
arrears of official business to bring up, institutes to attend, and my 
Report to make. I went to Washington in November to argue 
the questions of law, and again in December to attend the session. 
I returned home on the 5th of March, 1849. We had a fortnight 
of the worst possible weather before I left Washington, and three 
weeks of the same kind after I got home. Exposure to this, the 
fatigue of travelling, and being up all night, as we were some of 
the last nights of the session, abolished me. I have had no lungs, 
no stomach, no brains, or only had them as foes, and not as allies. 
Within a week past, we have had fine weather; and my vital cur- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 279 

rents are once more beginning to flow. I avail myself of the first 
leisure hour, and use my first returning strength, to write to you. 
And now, have I not made my justification for this long omission V 
Will you not pardon me ? I doubt not you will say the excuse I 
urge is sufficient for not writing ; but what excuse, you will ask, 
can I render for so gross a violation of the natural laws ? It is 
only this : That it seemed to me I had duties to perform which 
were of more importance than life itself; and therefore, in the con- 
flict of laws, I obeyed the highest. 

I have just begun to read the Memoir of Dr. Channing by his 
nephew, W. H. Channing. I am about half through the work, 
and about half through the life. And what a Hfe ! If inspiration 
is claimed for anybody, was not Dr. Channing inspired? How 
lovely, how true, how gloriously progressive ! If you have not 
read it, I entreat you to read it forthwith. I never knew before how 
athletic and vigorous he was when a boy, and how, when at Rich- 
mond, Va., and striving to obey the highest moral and religious 
laws of God, he was, in this very act of supposed obedience, violat- 
ing every physical law, and thereby almost cancelling the benefi- 
cent power of his spiritual attainments, by incurring bodily debility 
that lasted through life. What a divine desire to take care of his 
heart, with utter ignorance and heedlessness as to the condition of 
his stomach ! Oh, if he had understood that Grod was the Creator 
of both organs, and that the value of either is reduced comparar 
tively to nothing by the neglect of the other ! Why was not this a 
proper case for a miracle ? Why could not some spare angel, some 
loiterer, perhaps, about the courts of heaven, have been despatched 
to give him the substance of a certain book called the " Constitution 
of Man," or of " Combe on Digestion" ? Modern theology can- 
not answer this question ; but you and I can answer it reverently 
and philosophically, and in a way which will " vindicate the ways 
of God to man. ' ' 

On political affairs, I cannot but remark how full of instruction 
they are in both hemispheres. What an upheaving in the Old 
World ! What an expansion of life and vigor in the New ! We 
are as yet too near to take a view of the Olympian vastness of 
these events. V/e cannot see their magnitude any more than an 



280 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

insect can measure the outline of a pyramid, on one side of whicn 
it is perched. To compass these events, we must stand at a dis- 
tance of a hundred years, — a point at which you and I shall never 
stand in this life ; though I am beginning to feel as Dr. Franklin 
did when he poured out a fly from an old bottle of wine, and re-ani- 
mated it, and said that he would like to be bottled up for a century 
in the same way, and then be revived to take an observation of the 
progress of the world. 

With sincere love, whether silent or garrulous, your abiding 
friend, HORACE MANN. 

Boston, April 30, 1849. 
Hon. Horace Mann. 

Dear Sir, — I thank you for sending me the Document of the 
House of Representatives in Boston. As for your- conduct in the 
education-matter which it brings to light, I can only say, It is 
just like you. When I see such conduct, I thank God, and take 
courage. 

I believe I have all of your printed speeches but the last ; and, as 
one day or another I may have to " reckon " with you, I beg you 
to send me your last speech in Congress. 

Yours truly, THEODORE PARKER. 

Marj 11, 1849. When I added the postscript yesterday, with 
" Not guilty," I felt vast relief; for I did not think it possible that 
the attorney for the Government could be so ferocious and vengeful 
as to try Drayton still again. To the astonishment of every one, he 
this morning declared for another trial against him, on another in- 
dictment for stealing the slaves. He has called in one of the most 
eminent counsel to assist ; thus stultifying himself, after he has lost 
one case, by employing aid to help him gain another. 

It has taken all day to find a jury that had not made up or ex- 
pressed an opinion respecting the merits of the case. One man 
was asked whether he had formed or expressed an opinion respect- 
ing the prisoner's guilt or innocence ; and he spoke out boldly, 
before both court and jury and all the spectators in the court- 
house, saying, "Yes: my opinion is that he ought to be hung." 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 281 

Another man who was summoned said the same thing to one of the 
officers of the court. This shows what a deadly hostility there is in 
some minds to the prisoners. Others earnestly desire their acquit- 
tal, but hardly dare to speak out. When I happen to be standing 
aside, they come along once in a while, and speak confidentially 
about it. 

May 13. The cause came on yesterday in good earnest. It is 
very easy to see, that, in Gen. Jones, we are to have an antagonist 
vastly superior to Mr. Key. Indeed, with a jury composed of not 
more than two-thirds of knaves or fools, I should not have been 
afraid to try even such a kind of case as this against him. But the 
diiFerence between a giant and a pygmy does not represent the dif- 
ference between the great and the little man we are now contending 
against. 

May 17. I spoke nearly three hours in the case yesterday. 
Mr. Carlisle now addresses the jury, and then Gen. Jones. No 
case ever looked better for a prisoner, if it were only on some other 
subject. But the spirit, or party-spirit, of the people here, is fierce 
and fanatical beyond expression. They are hardly in a state of 
mind to be reasoned with. We have some advantage with a jury ; 
for they know they must sit still, and listen ; and, by calming them 
and expostulating with them, one may at last make an impression. 
But, should it ever be my fortune to be tried by slaveholders, I 
should consider myself doomed as soon as I was accused. 

Boston, Nov. 14, 1849. 
Hon. Horace Mann. 

My dear Sir, — It is time to go to bed ; but I cannot go to 
sleep without thanking you for the noble work you have done 
to-night. Of the magnificence and eloquence in thought and in 
speech, I shall not stop to speak : they were the smaller beauties 
of your sennon. 

I must thank you for the magnificent morality you set before 
those young men.* 

I think I can appreciate the heroism it required to do so, and to 
speak, as you have spoken, on such an occasion, in such a presence, 
when your words must seem personal to many ; no, not to many, 
* Lecture before the Mercaatile-Library Association, 



282 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

but to a few. I know well enough, and you know much more and 
better than I, how your oration will be received by the men who 
are looked upon as models, but whose baseness it exposed, whose 
littleness it scathed with terrible fire. But there were many trae 
hearts, in bosoms younger than mine, which beat with yours, and 
echoed back your words. 

I have often been thankful that you are in Congress, — one 
faithful man, not a slave to the instinct for office, more than a slave 
to the instinct for gold, but a representative of the instinct for 
justice and for trath. 

There is one that will long be grateful to you for such words as 

you spoke to-night, and the life which makes them not words, but 

deeds. I beg you to accept my most hearty thanks, and believe me 

Truly your friend, 

THEODORE PARKER. 

Washington, Dec. 11, 1849. 

Half an hour ago, Mr. Clay came into the House, and took a seat 
near mine. I have been studying his head, — manipulating it with 
the mind's fingers. It is a head of very small dimensions. Benev- 
olence is large ; self-esteem and love of approbation are large. The 
intellect, for the size of the brain, is well developed. His benevo- 
lence prevents his self-esteem from being offensive ; and his intellect 
controls the action of his love of approbation, and saves him from 
an excessive vanity. This vanity, however, has, at some periods of 
his life, led him into follies. He derives his whole strength from 
his temperament, which is supremely nervous, but with just as 
much of the sanguine as it was possible to put into it. Consider- 
ing the volume of the brain, or size of the head, it has the best ad- 
justed faculties I have ever seen. The skull, after death, will give 
no idea of his power, as he derives the whole of it from his temper- 
ament. 

Dec. 13. A word about the proceedings of the House yesterday. 
The Southern men concentrated on William J. Brown of Indi- 
ana for Speaker. He is a Democrat. The Democratic portion of the 
regular Free-soil party thought, if they could get him to make 
pledges on the subject of free soil, they should get a Free-soil man 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 283 

and a Democrat too. So he gave them pledges that he would do 
the very opposite thing from what was expected of him by all the 
Southerners who had brought hun forward and sustained him. He 
came within two votes of being elected. Five of the Free-soilers 
voted for him. This alarmed some of the extreme Southern men, 
who thought there must be mischief lying under "that white heap," 
as the rat said of the cat covered with meal. Three of them with- 
drew their votes from Brown, and he lacked two of a choice. This 
led to an inquiry, and the whole rascality came out. You will see, 
by the "Republic" I send you, how he got cursed. I feel like 
going into sackcloth and ashes for human nature. 

Dec. 14. We had a ten-ible day yesterday. The most violent 
declamation, and almost a fight. But to-day has opened more calm- 
ly. The paper will show you what we have to witness. Oh, how 
it makes one yearn for the light of truth, which would save men 
from rushing violently against each other in their zeal to reach the 
true goal ! 

Dec. 22. I shrink from the praise that you say I receive in 
certain quarters. It is prompted, in part at least, by motives in 
which I do not at all participate. I have voted for Mr. Winthrop, 
and in that way have fulfilled the hopes of the Whigs. He was 
their first choice ; he is only my second or third : yet, as he is the 
best man we could possibly elect, I have supported him. Just so 
much undeserved credit as I get from the Whigs, just so much 
undeserved censure I shall get from the Free-soilers. 

We have had the worst outbreak in the House this morning that 
we have ever had. It was infernal. The " Globe " will tell you 
all our proceedings. 

Dec. 23. The Speaker was chosen at six o'clock last evening, 
after the stonniest day that even our tempestuous Congress ever 
experienced. 

Howell Cobb is Speaker ; one of the fiercest, sternest, strongest 
proslavery men in all the South. He loves slavery. It is his pol- 
itics and his patriotism, his political economy and his religion. 
And by whom was he allowed to be elevated to this important post ? 
By the Free-soilers, who, at any time during the last three weeks, 
might have prevented it, and who permitted it last night when the 



284 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

fact stared them fall in the face. Mr. Winthrop was not unexcep- 
tionable, it is true ; but what a vast difference between him and a 
Southern, avowed champion of slavery, with all the South at his 
back to force him on, and at his ear to minister counsel! How 
strange is that hate of an evil thing which adopts the very means 
that secure its triumph ! How strange that love of a good thing 
which destroys it! Now we shall have all proslavery committees. 
All the power of patronage of the Speaker, and it is great, will be 
on the wrong side ; and this has been permitted by those who clamor 
most against all forbearance toward slavery, when by a breath they 
might have prevented it. Surely they must believe that God pun- 
ishes only commissioners, not omissioners. 

Washington, Jan. 5, 1850. 

I went last evening with Mr. to hear Professor Johnson 

lecture. In walking home, we got into some discussion about 
the condition of the country, and the prospects of humanity in 
general. I found Mr. apparently sceptical about any ameli- 
oration of the condition of mankind, or that there is, in truth, "a 
good time coming." When I spoke of sloughing off the vices of 
mankind, he rephed, that if men were to obey the laws of God, as 
I had been indicating, the drain of vices would be stopped, and 
the race would soon become so numerous as to lead of itself to 
infinite distress. I said, if men once understood their duty, and 
the means of happiness, no man would have any more children 
than he could support, educate, and leave in an eligible condition 
behind him, any more than a judicious farmer would have more 
stock on his farm than he could support with profit to himself, and 
with humanity to them. I told him, further, that the bringing of a 
human being into this world, with a moral certainty of his being 
unhappy and miserable, I regarded as a far greater crime, in the 
abstract, than sending a human being out of it. Both seemed to 
be enthely new ideas to him. 

E. W. Clap, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — Mr. Thompson has been to see me. Of course, I 
was obUged to tell him there might be circumstances in which I 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 285 

would vote for a slaveholder. This, I suppose, has lost me a 
hundred votes; but I had better lose a hundred by honesty than 
gam one by dishonesty. ... In great haste, very truly yours, 

H. MANN. 

Washington, Jan. 7, 1850. 

. . . Mr. A. has infinitely slender cause to praise Mr. Cobb for 
putting Mr. Giddings on the Committee on Territories, and Mr. 
Allen on the District Committee, and Mr. King on the Judi- 
ciary ; for he has so buried them up with Southern Democrats, that 
they cannot get their heads high up enough to breathe. With 
such a committee as Mr. Winthrop would have appointed, we 
should have met with no obstacles in, getting our measures before 
the country and the House. Now we shall encounter the most 
serious of obstacles at every step; and, if it is possible for skill or 
power to bar out all antislavery measures, it will be done. 

There is no end to the perversions of partisans. A partisan 
cannot be an honest man, whether he be a political or a religious 
partisan. How necessary it is to cultivate the seeds of truth in 
the young ! Nothing can be, or can approach to be, a substitute for 
it. So of the great principle, that it is for the interest of every man 
to be a true man, and that by no possibility can perversion or error 
be useful. How the world needs to be educated ! 

Does H. get exact and complete ideas of things ? Can he repro- 
duce what you teach him ? This is an all-important part of teach- 
ing. Has a lesson been so learned that the pupil can restate it in 
words, or exemplify it in act, or draw it on blackboards, &c.? This 
is the test to which learners should be early subjected. I am very 
glad about the music. We pity Laura Bridgeman for the priva- 
tion of her physical powers ; but how many of us need to be pitied 
for the privation of faculties whose absence deforms just as much as 
a loss of the senses ! One of these is music. 

Washington, Jan. 12, 1850. 
E. W. Clap, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — If you do not pity a poor fellow who is condemned 

to stay here and vote day after day, doing no good, and perhaps 



286 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

some harm, then you are more hard-hearted than a slaveholder. . . . 
I hear the Free-soil men are very ferocious against me because 
I voted for Mr. Winthrop. Some discussion was had about getting 
up an indignation meeting to give me a special denunciation. But 
probably they will think they can do the same thing without expos- 
ing themselves to an answer. . . . 

I am told that Mr. and others have got this notion in their 

heads, and speak of it freely, — that I am to be put forward next 
year as a candidate for Governor, in order to break down their 
party. They want, therefore, to hreah me down first. It is not 
what is past, but what they profess to apprehend for the future, that 
directs their course. They mean to put me in the wrong, at all 
events. Hence that article in the " RepubUcan," a week or ten days 
ago, written, as I am told, by . I should like a good oppor- 
tunity to set this matter right. . . . 

Truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Jan. 11, 1850. 

We have been going the same rounds, in attempting to choose 
a Clerk, which occupied us three weeks before we chose a Speaker. 
It is most irksome business, and cuts away all the ties that bind me 
to office. 

We have just this minute elected a Clerk from Tennessee. 
He is a Southerner, but as unobjectionable as any Southerner can 
be. He does not hold slaves ; but he was once a member of Con- 
gress, and voted with the slave-party through and through. I have 
not voted for him at all, though he is a Whig. We had an exciting 
time at the close of the voting, and before the vote was declared. 
The Southern Democrats, seeing how near he was to being elected, 
came over to him one after another, and at last gave him just 
enough. That is the way. They are always more true to slavery 
than to Democracy. It is a good result ; but I am rejoiced that I 
did not help to bring it about. During the whole voting, the 
Northern Whigs came round me, and some of our Massachusetts 
men too, and urged and besought me to change my vote. At one 
moment, when only one more vote was wanted, forty men turned 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 287 

beseechingly to my seat. I shook my head at them all ; and at that 
moment a Southern man on the other side of the House jumped 
up, and chanp;ed his vote. This settled it. 

Jan. 27, 1850. 

My lecture in Albany was delivered in Dr. Campbell's church. 
He was not there to hear it ; but on the list of lectui-ers were Mr. 
Parker, Mr. Peabody, Dr. Dewey. This list frightened Dr. Camp- 
bell ; and, as I learn by a letter received from there yesterday, he 
has closed his church against the coui-se. Isn't this beaiitiful ? 

Jan. 28, 1850. 

I am sorry that dancing is made a standing amusement at the 
parties whei-e the Normalists go. In the way in which it is gener- 
ally done, it is of little benefit to health, and of little advantage to 
any part of man's nature ; but my objection to it is the mischievous 
use which the enemies of the school will make of the custom. I 
can give up so much for peace ! 

Jan. 30. 

Mr. Sears will not find it easy to sweep prudential committees 
out of existence. Reasons very different from what belong to the 
merits of the ease will be present at the settling of that question. 

As for the Abstract, it is a great mistake. If it is understood 
that such portions only are to be taken as belong to one topic, and, 
after being taken once, that topic is to be dismissed, the consequence 
will inevitably be, that the committees will ignore the topic which 
has received attention, and write on some one which they hope will 
receive attention. 

I cannot but wish it were possible for some man or men to spread 
themselves over this great State of New York, and see that the 
children are as well taken care of as the pigs. 

Jan. 28, 1850. 

This morning I was introduced to , a gentleman from North 

Carolina, who wanted to have a talk with me about slavery. He 
is embedded in all the doctrines in its favor. He has been offering 
all commercial, economical, and pecuniary arguments to me in ref- 
erence to slavery in the Territories. As to the moral and religious 



/ 



288 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

aspect of the question, he is as firm for slavery as William Lloyd 
Grarrison is against it. He says he is willing to take up with any por- 
tion of the new territory which the South can accept, as a decent 
pretest for surrendering the rest. I told him I would give the 
South any money as an equivalent, any amount of the pubhc lands 
which they may turn into money ; but one inch of territory for 
slavery — never ! let what would come. 

Dark clouds overhang the future : and that is not all ; they are 
full of lightning. 

Feb. 4, 1850. 

Gen. Taylor's Message is very good so far as it relates to Cali- 
fornia. He recommends that it be admitted as a State. But, in 
the same message, he recommends non-action in regard to New 
Mexico ; that is, to form no territorial government for New Mexico, 
but to await its own motion on the subject. Now, the benefit of a 
territorial government in New Mexico, with a proliibition of slavery 
in it, is, that, while such a prohibition exists, no slaveholders will 
dare go there, and therefore will not be there to infuse their views 
into the people, and help form a constitution with slavery in it. If 
there is no such government, and no such prohibition, the fear is 
that slaveholders will go there, and exercise an influence in favor of 
slavery, and help form a constitution which shall not prohibit it, 
and, when they send that constitution to Congress, will get in, and 
so slavery be ultimately established by reason of present neglect. 
I approve, therefore, of the California part of the message, but 
disapprove of the other. 

Feb. 6. 

I really think, if we insist upon passing the Wilmot Proviso for 
the Territories, that the South — a part of them — will rebel. But 
/would pass it, rebellion or not. I consider no evil so great as 
that of the extension of slavery. 

Feb. r. 

Yesterday, Mr. Clay concluded his speech upon his Compromise 
resolutions. Its close was pathetic. There is hardly another slave- 
holder in all the South who would have perilled his popularity to 
such an extent. It will Ijc defeated : but, if we from the North are 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 289 

still, it will be defeated by Southern votes and declamation ; and it 
is better for the cause that they should defeat it than that we 
should. 

You were right in saying that I would not have asked Mr. 
Winthi'op about putting me on a committee ; for I would not have 
answered such a question, had I been in his place, and had it been 
asked me. Still, I think I should have held an important place on 
an antislavery committee ; and, what is more, should have had a 
majority of colleagues who would act with me. Now every thing 
is in jeopardy. 

I never said whom I would vote for, nor whom I would not. It 
would have been a bitter pill to be obliged to choose between the 
three candidates ; but, if I had been so obliged, I should have voted 
for the least evil. 

Feb. 14. 

You ejaculate a prayer for my protection. I do not feel in any 
personal danger. I mean to tell them what I think, and in such 
a way that they shall understand me. But I am principled against 
doing it offensively. 

If Mr. Clay had demanded immunity for slavery in the States 
and in the District only, he would have demanded nothing more 
than the South claims as absolute right ; and so it would, in their 
eyes, have wanted the reciprocity of a compromise. Nobody but 
the abolitionists of the Grarrison school pretends to interfere with 
slavery in the States ; and non-interference with slavery in the 
District, now only fifty square miles, would have seemed to them 
paltry. I think, regarding the thing as a coinpromise, Mr. Clay 
has done pretty well. But I do not concede their right to carry 
slavery into the Territories at all ; and therefore I will never yield 
to their claim to carry it there, come what will. I should prefer 
dissolution even, terrible as it would be, to slavery extension.. 

Washington, Feb. 6, 1850; 

E. W. Clap, Esq. 

My dear Sie, — ... You must be entirely mistaken in your 
speculations. The Free-soil party, with the best principles to stand 
on that ever a political party had, well-nigh ruined themselves by 

19 



290 • LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

their injudicious conduct. But I am afraid the Whigs are behaving 
every whit as badly as they. Last Monday, a portion of the party 
gave the most insane votes that ever sane men gave. They voted 
down, or helped to vote down, not only the Wilmot Proviso, but the 
Declaration of Independence and the Ordinance of 1787. To be 
sure, they say they voted against these doctrines because they were 
brought forward by Root and Giddings for the mischievous purpose 
of embarrassment and party spite, and without any adequate cause. 
But I would not vote against such a measure if the Devil brought 
it forward. . . . 

Yours very truly, 

HOEACE MANN. 



Washington, Feb. 12, 1850. 

. . . You remember what a hue and cry was raised among all the 
teachers and friends of the existing institutions of the deaf and 

dumb at my Report on the subject. Mr. P , of the New- York 

Institution, wrote a libellous article, which he sent to the " North- 
American Review; " and which was so bad, that even Mr. 'Q2l^-nrv 
would not publish it until it was mitigated. Mr. (xallaudet chimed 
in ; though he was more civil, and left his successor to do the 
offensive work. Afterwards, as you will remember, they sent an 
agent to examine European institutions, and make a report adverse 
to mine, — a work which he performed with zeal, and without 
scruple. The " thirty-one " took it up, and put it as an arrow into 
their quiver ; and so poor I was rather put down, or thought to be 
so, by the pubhc. 

But, at the same time that that controversy was going on, a 
Dr. Dix of Boston, who was in Berlin, wrote home a letter, in 
which, without knowing at all what was going on here, he sustained 
my views in full. Afterwards, Mr. Willis, who had seen the wonder, 
ratified my statement ; and James F. Austin, in a letter published 
in the " Boston Advocate," did the same thing. But nothing, I 
suppose, has ever removed a strong impression which was made on 
the public mind, that I was romancing. In the " Christian 
Register" of last Saturday, there is a long article, by an eye- 
witness of the Berlin Anhalt, which confirms my statement through- 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 291 

out. The author refers to me ; says he did not believe me, but 
now is convinced by his own eye-sight ; and his statements are 
stronger than mine. 

I have written to Dr. Howe, hoping to get it published in some 
of the Boston papers : so that I hope the truth will work its way, 
though it may be slowly. 

In regard to instructing the deaf and dumb in our 
country to speak as they speak m Germany, the difficulty 
is in our anomalous spelling, and the variety of the 
sounds of our vowels. But by phonetic means it may 
still be done : and perhaps that is the final reason why 
phonetics were invented ; for, in every other respect, the 
system only obscures the origin and philological history 
of the language. It would be worth while, however, to 
have all literature published in it also, for the sake of the 
deaf and dumb, who are restored to society by means of 
speech. 

Feb. 18, 1850. 

In the House, this morning, a resolution was offered to direct the 
Committee on Territories to bring in a bill for the admission of Cali- 
fornia. The Southern men were foolish enough to commence an 
opposition, not merely to the measure, but to every thing ; that is, 
to attempt to stop the wheels of (government, to prevent us from 
doing any thing, by a perpetual call for the yeas and nays ; thus 
taking up all time, and suspending all business. It is a resolution 
on the part of the South to prevent the Grovernment from doing any 
thing at all, if it attempts to do what they object to. It is a revo- 
lutionary proceeding, — revolution without force ; but it may come 
to force elsewhere. 

It shows what an excited state of feeling the South is in ; and it 
furnishes us with an opportunity, which I trust we shall improve, 
to show our firmness. It was the worst possible issue for them to 
make, and one on which I do not believe they can defend them- 
selves, even at liome. Do not be alarmed for me. I shall take 
care of myself, and sleep and eat as usual. 



292 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Feb. 19. 
The opposition, and the calling for yeas and nays, motions to 
adjourn, excusing men from voting, &c., continued till twelve 
o'clock at night ; when the Speaker declared that Monday was at an 
end, and that the debate on the resolution ended with it. This 
allowed us to go home to bed. It was an exciting time. Members 
were very good-natured on the surface ; but there was a deep feeling 
underneath. 

Feb. 20. 

You are mistaken in supposing the great majority of the South 
would rejoice if slavery were not extended ; at least, this is true 
of the men who control public sentiment. Mr. Clay is almost a 
dictator in Kentucky. His personal popularity saves him. 

We live a hurried and confused life here. So much labor to be 
performed, and such short days to work in ; such mighty events to 
control and regulate, and so little of public spirit and intelligence 
to direct them ! Life is quickened to an almost unconscious whirl. 
One thing alone makes it tolerable to me, — the possibility of doing 
something to favor the right or to check the wrong. 

March 1, 1850. 

I dined at the President's to-day, and sat on his left, with only 
one lady between, and had considerable conversation with him. He 
really is a most simple-minded old man. He has the least show or 
pretension about him of any man I ever saw ; talks as artlessly 
as a child about affairs of State, and does not seem to pretend to a 
knowledge of any thing of which he is ignorant. He is a remarka- 
ble man in some respects ; and it is remarkable that such a man 
should be President of the United States. He said it was impos- 
sible to destroy the Union. " I have taken an oath to support it," 
said he ; " and do you think I am going to commit perjury ? Mr. 
Jefferson pointed out the way in which any resistance could be put 
down, — which was to send a fleet to blockade their harbors, levy 
duties on all goods going in, and prevent any goods from coming 
out. I can save the Union without shedding a drop of blood. It 
is not true, as was reported at the North, that I said I would march 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 293 

an army and subdue them: there would be no need of any." 
And thus he went on talking like a child about his cob-house, and 
how he would keep the kittens from knocking it over. 

March 4. To-day Mr. Calhoun's speech will be read in the 
Senate, he being unable to dehver it. Mr. Webster is expected to 
speak very soon. I do not beheve he will compromise the great 
question. He will have too much regard for his historic character 
and for his consistency to do any such thing ; at least, I hope so. 

March 5. Mr. Calhoun's speech was given yesterday. It does 
not give universal satisfaction, even at the South. This is good. 

March 8. Mr. Webster spoke yesterday ; and (can you believe 
it ?) he is a fallen star ! — Lucifer descending from heaven ! We 
all had the greatest confidence in hun. He has disappointed us all. 
Within a week, I have said, many times, that he had an historic char- 
acter to preserve and maintain, which must be more to him than 
any temporary advantage. His intellectual life has been one great 
epic, and now he has given a vile catastrophe to its closing pages. 
He has walked for years among the gods, to descend from the empy- 
rean heights, and mingle with mimes and apes ! I am overwhelmed. 
There is a very strong feeling here among the Whigs of the New- 
England delegation ; and we shall do what we can still to uj)hold 
our cause. It is a terrible battle. Not balls of lead or copper 
strike their victim down, but, I fear, those of gold, or what some 
men value more than gold, — the possession of office. But Mr. 
Webster never can be President of the United States ; never, never ! 
He will lose two friends at the North where he will gain one at the 
South. 

March 10. I have read Mr. Webster's speech carefully. It has 
all the marks of his mind, — clearness of style, weight of statement, 
power of language ; but nothing can, to my mind, atone for the 
abandonment of the Territories to what he calls the law of Nature 
for the exclusion of slavery. When so much of Delaware, Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, lies far north of a great part of New 
Mexico, how can a man say that a law of Nature will keep slavery 
out of the latter, when it has not kept it out of the former ? The 
existence or non-existence of slavery depends more upon conscience 
than climate. Why should all the South be so anxious to pass this 



294 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

law, if Nature has already passed one ? Who knows but mines may 
yet be discovered in New Mexico ? — and mining is the very kind 
of labor on which slaves can be most profitably employed. 

I wish I had not made my speech. I should like to take up 
these topics, and set forth what seems to be the merit or the de- 
merit of them. There is a very strong feeling here that Mr. Web- 
ster has played false to the North. Many of our men will speak, 
and we shall have an exhibition of Northern feeling yet. 

March 14. ]Mi'. Webster has not a favorable response from any 
Northern man of any influence. It is hard to believe that a man 
who has been so intellectually consistent should at once overthrow 
his grand reputation ; but who can tell what an ambitious or disap- 
pointed man will not do to accomplish his object ? Oh, how priceless 
is principle ! . . . The delegate of Congress from Mexico (not yet 
received as such, because Congress has as yet established no Terri- 
torial Government over it) tells me the New-Mexicans are very 
averse to slavery, and that labor is too cheap, and the danger of 
slaves escaping too great, for any slaveholder to meet the risk 
of transferring his property there ; that climate and soil are not 
adapted to it, &c. But the opening of mines, as I have said before, 
would create a demand for them ; and all that is said of out-door 
labor in reference to the uncongeniality of the climate does not ap- 
ply to menial sei-vice. Besides, though the Mexicans may be hos- 
tile to slavery, yet they are a feeble, effeminate, unprincipled race ; 
and ten strong Southern men, with then' energy and activity, with 
their domineering and overpowering manners, would be a full match 
for a hundred of the best Mexicans that could be found. There is 
no absolute security but in the proviso. 

As soon as we had the President's message, in which he proposed 
non-action on the part of Congress, and that the Territories should 
be left to form then* own institutions, I foresaw some defection from 
the spirit which had before governed Congress. I therefore wrote 
to some gentlemen in New Yoi-k, advising first that they should 
send out a regular missionary, who should traverse aU the settle- 
ments in that country, and pre-oeeupy the minds of the people 
against slavery ; or at least that they should send out antislavery 
tracts in English and Spanish, and scatter them throughout the 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 295 

whole region. The first project was supposed to be too expensive ; 
but the latter has been adopted, and an address to the inhabitants 
will be distributed there in both languages to every one who can 
read. We are determining mighty events ; and the occasion, there- 
fore, is worthy of a mighty struggle. 

Boston, March 11, 1850. 

Saturday Night. 

Hon. Horace Mann. 

Deae, Sir, — Grod bless you for your noble speech which I have 
just read in the " Boston Daily Journal." Send me a copy to keep 
as a monument of the age when the Websters did as they have 
done, and obHge 

Yours truly, 

THEODORE PARKER. 

March 13, 1850. 

The hallucination that seizes the South on the subject of slavery, 
is, indeed, enough to excite our compassion ; but an excuse of their 
conduct to themselves on this ground, would, perhaps, enrage them 
more than any thing else. I would be wilhng to offer them any 
pecuniary indemnity which they might desire. Indeed, I had 
thought of bringing forward some such idea in my speech ; but I 
feared they would only scout it. 

I do not think Mr. Webster can be honest in the views expressed 
in his speech. I would struggle against a belief in his treachery to 
the last minute ; but this speech is in flagrant violation of all that 
he has ever said before. 

You are in an error in supposing that the exclusion of slavery 
from the Territories will affect the growth of cotton or rice unfavor- 
ably. Slaves are in great demand now for the cotton and rice 
fields. No production of the Territories would come in competition 
with theu' great staples. It is a fear of losing the balance of 
power, as they call it ; and no doubt, in some cases, a fear that this 
is only a beginning of a war upon slavery in the States themselves. 
On this latter point, they will not be pacified by any declarations 
made by the North. Then, again, on this subject they are not a 
reasoning people. 



296 LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN. 

To recur to Mr. Webster again. He has said some things it 
was quite unnecessary to say, and some things not true. Look 
at his interpretation of the admission of Texas ! The act was, as 
he has quoted in his speech, that four new States — no more — 
might be formed from Texas : those south of 36° 30' might be 
slave States, and those north must be fi-ee States. Now, he says 
we are bound to admit four slave States. But we are bound to 
admit only four in the whole. Why, then, admit all these four as 
slave States, and then others, that is, if we get the consent of Texas, 
as free States ? No : we are to admit but four in the whole ; and, 
as one or two of these are to be free, there must not be foiu* slave. 
He therefore not only proposes to execute that ungodly bargain, 
but to give one or two slave States to the South as a gratuity. 

So his offer to take the proceeds of the ptiblic lands to deport 
free blacks is of the greatest service to slavery. It is just what 
the South wants, — to get rid of its free blacks. It would enhance 
the value and the security of the slave property so called. Had 
he proposed to give the proceeds of the lands to deport manumitted 
slaves, that would encourage manumission, and be of real seiwice 
to humanity. Indeed, the more I thiak of the speech, the worse I 
think of it. 

Washington, March 21, 1850. 
Samuel Downer, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I am glad to hear from you. I did not know 
but you would give me over to "hardness of heart and to a repro- 
bate mind" after my votes for Speaker. But I am as well satisfied 
as I can be of any thing that it was the best course. If we must 
have one of two men for Speaker, you do nothmg towards deterring 
me fr-om supporting one of them, on the ground that he is a bad 
man, so long as I can prove the other to be a worse one. I have 
found that those who hold to the doctrine, that they will not take 
the least of two evils, forget that, by adding their own course to 
the number of evils, they make three of them, and then generally 
take the worst two of the three. I prefer the least one of two. to 

the worst two of three. . . . 

H. MANN. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 297 

March, 1850. 
To S. Downer. 

My dear Friend, — Mr. Webster astonished almost all Northern 
men here. We are recovering from the shock ; but it was a severe 
one. It was as unexpected as it was astounding. It may seem 
egotistic in me ; but I wish I had not spoken till after he did. I 
should have liked to ask him how he knows that God has Wilmot- 
provisoed New Mexico. Has he had any new revelation since the 
North-west Territory needed provisoing, since Wisconsin needed 
it, since Oregon needed it ? Indiana came near being a slave 
State, proviso and all ; and would have been so, if Congress had 
not rejected her petition, — John Randolph, of Virginia, making 
the report. Has God Wilmot-provisoed the whole belt of country 
from the eastern side of Delaware to the western side of Missouri, 
any more than he has New Mexico 'I and, if so, why has not his 
proviso taken effect? Is there not a vast region of those States 
that lies far north of the greater part of New Mexico ? Has Mr. 
Webster any geological eyes by which he has discovered that there 
are no mines in New Mexico which could be profitably worked by 
slaves ? If predial slavery cannot exist there, cannot menial ? 
Does not slavery depend more on conscience than on climate f If 
individuals do not desire to carry slavery into New Mexico for 
personal profit, may not communities and States desire it for pohti- 
cal aggrandizement ? 

As to fugitive slaves, I need say nothing. Wliile Massachusetts 
citizens are imprisoned in Southern poits, I think fugitive slaves 
will be gentlemen at large in Massachusetts. 

But the offer to give eighty millions received and a hundred and 
eighty millions expected to be received from the public lands to 
transport free negroes to Africa, and thereby to give increased 
value to slaves and increased security to slave property, is 
atrocious. 

Now, would to God that you Free-soilers were not a separate 
organization ! With what power such men as S. C. Phillips, G. 
Palfrey, William Jackson, and Sumner, could act upon the Whigs, 
if they were not alienated from them ! For Heaven's sake, heal this 



29S LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

breacli, instead of widening it, and bring tlie wliole force of the 

North to bear in favor of freedom ! 

With best love for your wife and your babes and yourself, I am 

very truly and sincerely yours, 

H. MANN. 

Washington, April 1, 1850. 

Mr. Calhoun died this morning. . . . The opinion is that the 
South will be relieved. He has carried his doctrines of disunion so 
far, that his political opponents have made capital out of his extrav- 
agances. He had done all the political thinking for South Caro- 
lina for twenty years. That State has known but one will, and 
that was his. It is the most oligarchical State in this Union, — 
perhaps in the world. The spirit of its people has rendered it so. 
I regret his death politically : I think it will tend to canonize him, 
and give a sort of sanctity to his enormities. Men will attack his 
seditious and treasonable doctrines with less earnestness than if he 
were ahve ; for it always looks, or can be made to look, like cowar- 
dice to assail a dead man. His private life has been, I believe, 
unimpeachable ; but his public course has been one of the greatest 
disasters that has ever befallen the country. His errors have all 
originated in his disappointed aspirations for the Presidency. Oh, 
if we could only look a few years into the future, or, throwing our- 
selves foi'ward a few years into the future, look back, what dif- 
ferent motives of action would be suggested to our minds ! 

April 2. 

Mr. Calhoun's funeral, which took place to-day, was attended 
in the Senate Chamber at twelve o'clock. I did not wish to con- 
nect the thoughts I have with death with the thoughts which I 
have with him ; and therefore I did not attempt to be present. 
What a test of true greatness is death ! How it converts to vanity 
and nothingness all which is not intrinsically worthy! How it 
magnifies and eternizes whatever is good ! The preacher who could 
carry men for an hour to the other side of the grave, whenever they 
have a prospect of worldly appetite or ambition or aggrandizement 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 299 

in view, and make them look back upon the objects of then- desire 
from that point, would indeed be a minister of God. 

April 6, 1850. 

Public affairs are looking worse here, — more dangerous for the 
cause of hberty than ever. The defection of Mr. Webster is dread- 
ful ! The Whigs and Free-soilers in Massachusetts are so hostile to 
each other, that, though the great body of them think alike on the 
most important subjects, they cannot act together. They fly from 
each other with hard words, instead of laboring together for the 
cause of the country. 

Since Mr. Webster's speech, the tide of things is changed. 
The South have taken courage, and are pressing their schemes with 
renewed energy'. Their old sMIl can hardly be improved. 

Being the last bid for the Presidency, this speech of Mr. Webster's 
was the heaviest ; but the other aspirants for the same object do not 
wish to be outdone or outbid, and so they are taking a strong 
Southern ground. I fear the cause will be lost. God grant that I 
may be mistaken ! 

Many remarks upon Mr. Webster are published in these 
letters, because the spirit in which Mr. Mann held up his 
testimony against him is often misrepresented. In his 
subsequent life, he often said, that, if he had never done 
any thing else purely for the love of truth and his country, 
the course he had pursued in regard to Mr. Webster had 
the sanction of his later conscience and judgment ; that 
he acted consciously against his own immediate interests ; 
and that society would finally justify him, though he never 
expected justice from the men who followed so closely in 
Mr. Webster's footsteps in sacrificing the cause of freedom 
and truth for party, or political or personal considerations. 

On the day when he left home to take his first letter 
against Mr. Webster to the printer, he said, " I am going 
to do the most reckless thing, on my own account, which 
I have ever done, in publishing this letter. A thousand 



300 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

of the most prominent men in Massachusetts will never 
speak to me again. But I must do it ; and I shall proba- 
bly follow it up with more." 

West Newton, April 24, 1850. 
Rev. T. Paeker. 

Deak Sir, — I have just returned from a visit of some days into 

the western part of New York, where I have seen our common 

friend, the Rev. Mr. May. He has wiitten a letter to you, which 

I take pleasure in forwarding. I attended service in his church 

last Sunday morning, where he administered the communion, and 

spent at least half an hour in enforcing our duty to follow the 

example of Jesus Chi'ist in our conduct rather than in our profession 

or creed. He pathetically lamented the apostasy of so many of the 

clergy at the present time, and their active agency on the side of 

wrong; and he said, what I and I doubt not many others were 

rejoiced to hear, that, while so many doctors of divinity were proving 

faithless to then- highest trust, Theodore Parker, the man whom they 

denounced as an infidel, was more ably and conspicuously faithful 

to the cause of truth than any of their number. It produced a 

strong sensation, as home-truths always will. . . . 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



Boston, May 6, 1850. 
Hon. Horace Mann. 

My dear Sir, — Perhaps I ought not to trouble so busy a man 
as you are to read so unimportant a matter as a letter from me ; 
but I cannot reasonably forbear telling you how thankful I am to 
you for writing such a noble letter to your friends and constituents. 
Grod bless you for it ! I intended once, soon after Mr. Webster 
made his speech, to have written a public letter to you, and reviewed 
the whole matter before the country ; but I am glad I did not, for 
then I should, perhaps, have prevented you from doing better than 
any one has done hitherto. A hundred and seventy years ago, 
John Locke wrote : " Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of 
man, and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 301 

of our nation, that it is hardly to be conceived that an JEnglishman, 
much less a gentleman, should plead for it." 

Yet think of Mr. Webster and his eight hundred "retainers," 
as the " Advertiser " calls them ! 

Accept my heartiest thanks for your many services, and beHeve 

me your friend and servant, 

THEO. PARKER. 



Washington, May 18, 1850. 

... My letter is approved or disapproved a thousand times 
more for its bearing on party attachments than for its merits : so, 
though I do not accept as just all the criticisms made upon it, or 
the condemnations bestowed upon it, neither do I suffer myself to 
be elated by the extravagant praises which it receives in certain 
quarters. I hope there is nothing in it that I shall be sorry for or 
ashamed of hereafter : that is the greatest thing, after all. It 
pleases all people with whom antislavery is the first object. This 
is because antislavery is my first object. As you shade off with 
less and less antislavery, or more and more proslavery, and into 
attachment to party as a paramount motive of action, it is liked less 
and less, or disliked more and more : so that it has a perfect test. 

I suppose Mr. Webster is in a very anxious state of mind. He 
has never known what it was to encounter general opposition before. 
I have most urgent letters from the North that I shall answer his 
Newburyport letter. 

Washington, June 9, 1850. 

Yesterday I read Prof. Stuart's pamphlet in defence of Mr. 
Webster. It is a most extraordinary production. He begins by 
proving biblically that slavery is a divine institution, permitted, 
recognized, regulated, by God himself; and therefore that it cannot 
be malum in se. The greater part of the work consists in main- 
taining this point both from the Old and New Testaments ; but 
he spends a few pages at the close in showing that it is contrary to 
all the precepts and principles of the gospel, and is little better 
than all crimes concentrated in one. How it can be both of these 
things at the same time, we are not informed. 



302 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

He says, with Mr. "Webster, that we are bound to admit four 
slave States from Texas, although we were to admit but four in the 
whole ; and one at least, if not two, of the four were to be free 
States. But he says it is to be by the consent of Texas; and 
Texas may give consent to only four slave States taken in succes- 
sion. Now, the answer to this is so plain, that it is difficult to see 
why even an Old-Testament orthodox minister should not see it. 

"When a contract is executory, as the lawyers say (that is, to be 
executed in future) , and it contains mutual stipulations in favor of 
each of the parties, then nothing can be more clear than that each 
of the successive steps for fulfilment must have reference to what 
is to be done afterwards. Neither party can claim that the con- 
tract shall be so fulfilled by the other party in any one particular 
as to render the fulfilment of the whole impossible. Each preceding 
act of execution must have reference to what, by its terms, is to 
be subsequently executed. 

So he says the Wihnot Proviso for a Territory is in vain, because 
the Territory, as soon as it is transformed into a State, can establish 
slavery. But the Wilmot Proviso over a Temtory defends it against 
that class of population that would establish slavery when it be- 
comes a State. It attracts to it that class of population which will 
exclude slavery ; and therefore such proviso is decisive of the fate 
of the State. 

June 17, 1850. 

This is Bunker-Hill day ; but, though the cause of human liberty is 
intrusted to us now, there is not much of the Bunker-Hill spirit here. 
Compared with our fathers, we have become a most mercenary race. 
"With many, human freedom is a light afiair, when placed in the 
scale against money ; and Mars and Mammon are the greatest gods 
in the Pantheon. 

We are just now taking a vote to give a portion of the public 
lands to the States, to be appropriated to the support of institu- 
tions for the insane, the deaf and dumb, blind, &c. Almost all 
the public lands have hitherto been given to the States in which 
they are situated ; and, generally, more for business and economical 
purposes than for charitable ones. What a glorious fund it would 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 303 

be, if all the public lands, or tbeir proceeds, could be consecrated to 
education and to the amelioration of human suffering ! I had a 
dream of this sort once, but shall never be able to realize it. . . . 
The preliminary vote has passed by more than three to one ! 

June 18, 1850. 

Yesterday Mr. Webster made his last and special declaration. 
A motion was pending, that it should be no objection to the admis- 
sion of any State hereafter to be formed out of the territory ceded 
by Mexico, — that is, Cahfornia, Utah, or New Mexico, — that its 
constitution should recognize or provide for or estabhsh slavery. 
The present Congress, it is admitted on all hands, has no power to 
act on that subject ; but the movement was designed to give some 
moral power to the claims of slavery hereafter, should such claims 
be made. Mr. Webster took a retrospect of his whole course since 
the 7th of March speech, his Newburyport letter, &c., and declared 
that he had seen, heard, and reflected nothing which had not con- 
finned him in the soundness of his opinion ; and so, in the most 
solemn manner, he declared his purpose to go for the bill. I think 
it will pass the Senate beyond all question. I fear it will also pass 
the House. It is said that Mr. Clay put in the provision about 
buying out the claims of Texas at some eight or ten or twelve mil- 
lions of dollars, for the very purpose of securing a sufficient num- 
ber of votes to carry it. 

The Texan debt consists of bonds or scrip, which, at the time the 
Compromise Bill was brought in, was not worth more than four or 
five cents on the dollar : but the same stock is said to be now worth 
fifty per cent ; and, should the bill pass, the stock will be worth a 
premium. Now, where so many persons are interested, will they not 
influence members ? May not members themselves be influenced by 
becoming owners of this stock ? It afibrds at least a chance for 
unrighteous proceedings ; and, should the bill pass, there are mem- 
bers who will not escape imputation and suspicion. 

A rumor lias reached us from New Mexico, that the people are 
taking steps there to call a convention for the formation of a State 
Constitution. Should this prove authentic, as most people here 
think it will, and should they put a proviso against slavery in their 



304 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

constitution, would it not look like a godsend, — like a special prov- 
idence, — notwithstanding all we say about that class of events? 
Oh, may it turn out to be so ! 

Washington, June 13, 1850. 
S. Downer, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — You must excuse me for not answering all your 
kind letters. I should be glad to do so, if it were possible, espe- 
cially if it would be the means of getting more ; for they are most 
acceptable to me. 

I leai'n that IMi-. Webster has written home, that, if the North 
will give way on the subject of slavery, they can have a tariff 
IN SIX WEEKS ; and I suppose the address now to be circulated is 
for signatures, calling upon the Massachusetts delegation to make 
" concession;" that is, to surrender the Territories to slavery : then 
we may have " beneficent legislation," by which he means a tariff. 

I am also told that the Hon. , a factory superintendent at 

Lowell, on a salary of four or five thousand dollars a year, was on 
here two or thi'ee weeks ago to see if some arrangement could not 
be made to barter human bodies and souls at the South for the 
sake of certain percentages on imported cottons at the North ; and 
that JMr. Foote of Mississippi, and Mangum of North Carolina, 
offered to become sureties for the an-angement : how many others, 
I do not know. I have no doubt of all this, not a particle; though 
I communicate it to you to give you the means of farther inquiry, 
and of action after inquiry is made. . . . 

The Whigs, with very few exceptions, appear to stand weU in the 
House ; and I trust we shall be able to give a good account of our- 
selves. How I wish the Whigs now had all the Free-soilers in 
their ranks ! In great haste, yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, June 28, 1850. 
S. Downer, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — The fate of the Compromise Bill is stiU doubtful 

in the Senate, though pubhc opinion here is against its success. 

Nothing but the prowess of Clay could have kept the breath in it 

to this time. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 305 

The news from New Mexico, if confirmed, knocks the bottom all 
out of the compromise. If they organize a government there, 
choose a governor and a legislature, appoint judges, &e., it will pre- 
sent a very pretty anomaly for us to be sending governor, judges, 
&c., to them. But the great point is the presumed proviso in 
their constitution. With that, the longer tlie South keeps them out 
of the Union, the more antislavery they will become. 

. . . Well, Downer, it is the greatest godsend in our times that 
Taylor was elected over Cass. It is the turning-point of the for- 
tunes of all the new Territories. Had Cass been President, they 
would have all been slave, and a fair chance for Cuba into the bar- 
gain. I am not sorry because I did not vote for Taylor ; but I am 
glad others did. I think he has designedly steered the ship so as 
to avoid slavery. . . . 

Best regards to your wife. You know you always have them. 

Look out for the boy, and make a hero of him. 

Ever and truly yours, 

H. MANN. 

Washington, July 1, 1850. 

Webster said there were only two parts of the Constitution which 
had any bearing on the subject of the trial by jury ; and that the 
Constitution, neither in its letter nor in its spirit, required the trial 
by jury for a fugitive slave. 

I proved in my letter that the article in the Constitution about 
courts did have a bearing, and a most important one, on the subject 
of jury trial ; because, on the strength of it. Congress provided jury 
trials for more than nine-tenths of all the cases that ever arise in the 
courts. I showed, that, under this article about courts. Congress 
had power to make provision for juries. 

On the second point, I showed that the spirit of the Constitution 
did clearly require, that, in legislating on the subject of fugitive 
slaves, Congress should provide the jury trial. 

Now, some one who has written an article in the " Christian Re- 
gister," which no man at once honest and sensible could write, takes 
the second position of Mr. Webster, and applies my first answer to 
it ; that is, when Mr. Webster says the trial by jury is not de- 

20 



306 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

manded, he applies my answer to the part of Mr. Webster's posi- 
tions, that there was no clause having any bearing on the subject, 
or conferring any power. 

The Compromise Bill drags along with various prophecies about 
its success. How I shall hallelujah if it is defeated in the Senate ! 

Sept. 1, 1850. 
" Oh that we could see the end of crime from the beginning ! " 
was the ejaculation that broke spontaneously from me on reading the 
account of 's last day. It has always struck me that the cultiva- 
tion of causality would be a mighty aid to morals, because it would 
connect consequences with actions in our minds so indissolubly ; and 
the least reflection would always show that there must be more suf- 
fering from unlawful indulgence than there can be enjoyment : so 
that every man would know that he would be the loser by not sup- 
pressing his passion. A starving man knows the diiference between 
bread and a rock. Can any circumstances be supposed in which 
he would prefer the rock to the bread, when eager to gratify his ap- 
petite ? Suppose the conviction to be just as clear in the human 
mind, that all wi'ong-doing will bring pain, and vastly more pain, too, 
than it can bring pleasure, — because to suppose that a man can vio- 
late any law of God, and get more, or as much, from the enjoyment, 
as he must suffer from the punishment, would be to suppose that he 
could outwit or circumvent the All-knowing and All-powerful, — 
suppose, I say, this conviction to be perfectly clear and strong, and 
I cannot see how a man could deliberately choose the evil, and re- 
fuse the good. It may be replied, that most men, in their sober 
senses, will acknowledge that they must lose more by pain than they 
can gain by gratification for all transgressions of the divine law. 
Grant that they may do so in their sober moments ; yet when the 
temptation comes, and passion arises, this conviction is darkened : 
it is, at last, temporarily lost sight of; and, in its oblivion, the evil 
triumphs. But no passion can make us love pain rather than 
pleasure ; and if we ever come to see that offences will bring pain and 
will destroy pleasure, as clearly as we see that two and two make 
four, or that fire will consume, or water will drown, then how can 
we choose to incur the pain by committing the wrong ? In some 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 307 

things, we see this now. Why can we not in more ? Why, even- 
tually, can we not in all ? 

Washington, July 9, 1850. 

It is a sad hour. News has just come from the White House 
that the President is dying. If he dies, it will be a calamity that no 
man can measure. His being a Southern man, a slaveholder, and a 
hero, has been like the pressure of a hundred atmospheres upon the 
South. If he dies, they will feel that their strongest antagonist has 
been struck from the ranks of their opponents ; and I fear there will 
not be firmness nor force enough in all the North to resist them. 
The future is indeed appalling. 

July 10. Long before this reaches you, you will have heard 
that Gen. Taylor is gone. It is indeed a sad event for the country. 
Only one thing, at the time of his election, reconciled me to it, — 
the perfect political profligacy of his opponent. But the course of 
Gren. Taylor has been such as to conciliate me, and all whose opinions 
have coincided with mine, to a degree which we should have thought 
beforehand impossible. He had probably taken the wisest course 
that he could have taken. He poised himself between the North 
and the South. He knew it was utterly impossible for any prohi- 
bition of slavery to pass the present Senate ; he supposed that no 
Territorial Grovernment could possibly be passed by the House, with- 
out the proviso ; and therefore he took things at first where he knew 
they could be left after the contest of a session. He went for no 
Territorial Government at all, leaving the Territories to form State 
Governments for themselves ; being well convinced that they would 
form free constitutions. He relied upon this with more confidence 
than any of us did : but he had it in his power to procure the ful- 
filment of his own prophecy ; and I am satisfied that it has been his 
purpose, from the beginning, that slavery should be extended no 
farther. 

A dark hour is before us ! 

July 12. To-day the city is dressed in mourning. No one as 
yet seems to know what will be the policy of the new President, — 
whether it will be for freedom or for slavery, or whether he will not 
profess to adopt such a middle course as that slavery will be sure 



308 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

to get the advantage in the end. I look upon the movement in 
New Mexico — that of inserting the prohibition of slavery in their 
new constitution — as even more valuable than I did before. 
They will be far less likely to recede from this ground, having once 
adopted it. 

Washington, July 20, 1850. 

I suppose the Cabinet work is done, and that Mr. Webster is to 
be Secretary of State. This is to be regretted for a thousand rea- 
sons ; but there are some aspects of the case in which it may argue 
well for a settlement of the hostile questions which now agitate the 
country. Mr. Webster will be very acceptable to the South for the 
very reason that he has made himself offensive to the North. I 
only hope it will eventuate for the good of the country. 

July 21. Four of the seven members who compose the cabinet 
are from the slaveholding States : so, if we consider Mr. Webster a 
proslavery man, they have five out of seven. But one thing is very 
observable, — though four are from the slaveholding States, yet one 
is from Missouri, one from Kentucky, one from Maryland, and one 
from North Carolina. All these are just south of Mason and Dix- 
on's line ; and they are from the States that hold slavery in its more 
mitigated forms, and not one of them is an intense proslavery State. 
The men selected are, I suppose, moderate men, comparatively, on 
this subject. Therefore, though the South have no confidence in 
Mr. Webster as an honest man, yet his late change of position on 
this subject renders him less offensive to the extreme men, and more 
acceptable to the moderate men. 

K Mr. Fillmore has taken this course to conciliate the South in 
the first instance, and, with his Cabinet, eventually to siibserve 
Northern feeling on this subject of slavery, then the whole may 
eventuate well ; but if it is a concession to the South, on the surface, 
to be followed by an adoption of their views as to slavery ultimately, 
then it deserves all reprobation. For myself, I shall not give my 
confidence to this Administration, on this point, until it earns it. 
When it does earn it, then, as a matter of justice, I shall no longer 
withhold it ; though, in the honesty of one of the members composing 
it, I have not, and probably never shall have, the shghtest con- 
fidence. I therefore await developments. It has proved, so far, a 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 309 

godsend to Mr. Webster ; for I do not believe he could have with- 
stood the opposition against him in Massachusetts. Now, instead 
of being defeated, he escapes from the conflict. Still I can have 
no confidence in his ultimate success ; for no one can safely prophesy 
success of a dishonest man. 

July 23, 1850. 

Yesterday Mr. Clay made his closing speech on the Compromise 
Bill. He spoke three hours and ten minutes, and seemed to retain 
his vigor and mental activity to the last. It is certainly very 
remarkable. He is now in his seventy-fourth year. For more than 
two months, he has sat in his seat every day, listening to the attacks 
made upon his favorite measures, occasionally replying when he 
thought it expedient, sometimes by a speech of half an hour, and 
always alive and on the alert ; and now, at the end of this long and 
intense vigilance, he makes a speech of more than three hours, full 
of energy and skill, and comes out of it alive. He is certainly an 
extraoi'dinary man, prepared by nature to do gi-eat and good things, 
but has not fulfilled his destiny in regard to the latter. 

Every day of my life impresses the conviction upon me more and 
more, how important is the early direction given to the sentiments 
as well as to the intellect. There is now power enough among the 
educated men of the country to save it, if that power were rightly 
directed. 

July 27, 1850. 

One of our colleagues, Mr. Daniel P. King of Danvers, is dead. 
. . . What a series of startling events befall us ! and yet how little 
they are heeded! As we sail along, the cry is raised, " A man 
overboard ! " There is a momentary arrest ; but soon the ship is on 
its way again as if nothing had happened. There is no place so 
good to die in as at the post of duty. When Smith O'Brien was 
on his trial for treason in Ireland, and while he was sitting in the 
dock, which is the criminal box, he was asked for his autograph ; 
upon which he wrote, — 

" Whether on the gallows high, 
Or in the battle's van, 
The fittest place for man to die 
Is where he dies for man.*' 



A noble sentiment, beautifully expressed 



310 LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 

JtJLT 29, 1850. 

We have just heard that Mr. Winthrop has been appointed 
senator to fill the place made vacant by Mr. Webster. Under the 
circumstances, the duty of appointing devolved upon Gov. Briggs. 
I am so certain, that I can almost say I know this appointment has 
been very disagreeable to Gov. Briggs, and that he has been forced 
into it by the Webster influence. The promotion, and therefore 
indorsement, of Mr. Webster by President Fillmore, has given the 
proslavery party a prodigious advantage in this contest. If the 
South, and then* proslavery friends at the North, do not carry this 
measure, it will be almost like a mnacle. But there is a goodly 
number of us who will stand firm. For my part, I would rather 
have the feeling of free thought and free speech within me than to 
have the highest office which the nation can bestow. 

The Compromise Bill is coming to a crisis, and the contest 
becomes intense. Two tie-votes were taken yesterday in the Senate 
on important amendments, which shows how nearly parties are 
divided. 

Washington, July 31, 1850. 

My dear Downee, — You could not have given me any proof 
of your friendship so acceptable as in wi'iting to me with the frank- 
ness you have done. I am astonished at the idea that my notes 
were unjustifiably severe in the apprehension of any reasonable man. 
It is, as it seems to- me, nothing but truth that gives them an edge. 
In what might be called harshness or bitterness, or, to use a stUl 
harder word, vindietiveness, my references to Webster, compared 
with his contemptuous and supercilious manner to me, were as 
honey to vitriol. 

However, if I have gone beyond the point, in attacking Mr. 
Webster, at which the sympathy of the pubUc is on my side, then 
I have made a mistake ; but I do not feel that I have done a wrong. 
It cannot, however, be expected that my friends will attack him as 
his do me, or that mine will defend me as his do him. Besides, — 
and this, I think, accounts for the most of it, — since my notes were 
written, he has not only escaped the doom which awaited him as a 
Massachusetts senator, but has passed into a place of great power 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 311 

and influence. All are now looking at him as a man having almost 
the nation's patronage at his disposal, and as interested to carry out 
measures which will pay in gold. But I have no such prerogative, 
and therefore must suflfer. This is my explanation of the matter. 
Could it have been possible that our fortunes could have been 
changed, I beUeve the result would have been changed also. 

You speak of my not having written to you. It is too true. But 
I have been so worn down with what seemed indispensable to be 
done, that I have not found time, and could not, as I sometimes do, 
make it. ... I wish you would write me often. Tell me in frank- 
ness every thing that will be of service to me, and all in which I 
feel interested, whether I reply or not. Your letters are always so 
welcome to me, that, if you could know how glad I am to receive 
them, it would be some compensation to you for writmg them. 

I have not time to go into political speculations. The Compro- 
mise Bill will probably pass the Senate to-day, or almost certainly 

to-morrow. . . . Yours truly, 

H. MANN. 

Aug. 5, 1850. 

We are rejoiced at the defeat of the Omnibus Bill. It strengthens 
the chances of the Territories for freedom. All delay in admitting 
California, that comes from slavery, will intensify their hatred of it. 
However the questions may be decided ia Congress, the chances 
ai'e increasing, that the Territories, by their own action, will exclude 
it. This, too, is the best mode in which the work can be done ; 
for there are many at the South who would all but rebel, if not 
actually do so, should Congress prohibit slavery, who would still 
allow it if the Territories themselves prohibit it. Several of the 
Southern States have actually resolved that they would resist if 
Congress should pass the proviso ; but none have dared to utter a 
threat if the inhabitants of the Territories legislate it into existence. 

Aug. 7, 1850. 

The President's message, yesterday, on the subject of the Texan 
boundary, gives general satisfaction. The extreme Southern men, 
who are for the doctrine of States Rights, or nulhfication, or seces- 



312 LIFE OF HORACE MANK 

sion, of course denounce it. But the Constitution men from all 
pai'ts of the country will, I think, uphold it. . . . Mr. Webster's 
letter to Grov. Bell is deprecatory in its tone, — a letter coax- 
ing or fearful or timid. The prospect now is that there will be a 
settlement of the most exciting and alarming topics before Congress, 
and that the country will have peace out of the commotion in which 
it is now involved. It may postpone the close of the session for a 
few days, or even weeks ; but this we must bear for the general 
good. 

Aug. 15. The House is engaged in an earnest debate on the 
subject of the President's message about Texas ; the North gene- 
rally defending and upholding it, while the South is declaiming 
against it con furore. The South is becoming, to appearance, more 
desperate ; and the men talk treason as they take their daily meals. 
We are to have warm times here before we leave. Calling the yeas 
and nays, and practising all manner of delays, will be resorted to, 
no doubt ; and we shall have one or two night sessions. But it is 
thought we are strong enough to divide, and work by relays ; that is, 
one half of us stay by for twelve hours, and the' other half for the 
next twelve. 

Washington, Aug. 9, 1850. 

S. Downer, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — Perhaps you will think my prophesying is not 
from above, because I said the Compromise Bill would pass on the 
very day that it didn't. But I was deceived, in common with 
almost everybody else. At the time I wrote you, I had not seen 
the " Morning Intelligencer " or " Union " of that day, but observed 
afterwards that both of them anticipated its passage almost certainly. 
It was a most extraordinary combination of circumstances that de- 
feated it, — wholly unexpected by either friend or foe. 

You have written me a most excellent letter — your last — full 
of wisdom and truth. I suppose the issue is made up in Boston, 
and that Websterism is to be triumphant. Of course, " outer dark- 
ness " must be the fate of all who do not bow down before the 
image that he sets up. You speak of my defying it and assailing 
it. I feel just as you speak ; but it is not the time now. New 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. - 313 

events will develop themselves before the adjournment of Congi'ess; 
and we shall not know where to plant ourselves until we see the 
results of present movements. If we were to take any ground to- 
day, the chance is that some new event would change the whole 
aspect of affairs, and render the application of the wisest counsels 
ineffectual. When the session is over, we shall see what is before 
us, and what is behind. 

I shall not be surprised even if California is not admitted this 
session, or, if admitted, then admitted on such terms as would make 
us all prefer that it should remain where it is. . . . 
Yours ever and truly, 

H. MANN. 



Washington, Aug. 11, 1850. 
S. Downer, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — Nothing is more agreeable to me than your 
letters. I feel, on seeing them, that the whole world has not 
abandoned me, which many other things that I see would almost 
make me believe. 

In yours of the 8th inst. , you suggest that I should present my- 
self before the public again, and, as I understand you, without de- 
lay. But, in the first place, have I any chance to be heard in such 
a storm ? I fear not. . . . 

And again : the new leaves of the history of the country are 
turning over so fast, that comments upon the text on one leaf are 
almost superseded by what the next suggests. It is impossible 
to say what is to be the result of the session which must now 
be drawing to a close. Suppose, which is not impossible, that 
California should not be admitted : in that fact, there would be 
thunder enough to frighten Jupiter. Suppose, if California should 
be admitted, Territorial Governments should be formed without the 
proviso : that single fact would put more weapons of war into 
one's hands than Vulcan could forge in a twelvemonth. When the 
session closes, however, things will have, at least for a. time, more 
of a fixed character. 

Aug. 12. Since writing the above, I have seen the " Dedham Gar 
zette " of Saturday, which has a very strong article against Webster 



314 LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 

and his body-guard, and therefore indirectly in my favor. There 
is one peeuharity about that editor's articles on this subject. He 
never approves my course or defends me, unless when, by so doing, 
he can put the Whigs in the wrong. Such defence is almost as 
bad as a direct condemnation ; for when any Wliig finds his own 
party placed in the wrong, and me in the right, for no other reason 
than because I differ from them, it prejudices him against me 
more than any thing else could. It turns out, therefore, that my 
standing on independent ground, and not pledged to any party, 
leaves me without any support whatever arising from partisan feel- 
ing, and exposed to all the violence of opposition which can arise 
from that soui'ce. This is the political misfortune of my position ; 
but conscience got me into the scrape, and conscience must sustain 
me through it. 

The " Norfolk-County Journal " of Saturday contains a very 
pointed article on me. It says nothing about the future ; but I 
should not be surprised if it meant as much as the " Courier " has 
expressed. . . . But this thing occupies my thoughts too much, and 
I am afraid it does yours. . . . 

Very truly, as ever, yours, 

H. MANN. 



Washington, Aug. 15, 1850. 

S. DowNEE, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — ^I have yours of the 10th inst., in which you 
say, " I do not hear that any of your friends are hearing from you." 
If you had heard of any such thing, you would have heard of what 
does not exist. I have written to but one friend in my district since 
the first clap of thunder that opened the storm : that was to my 
friend Clap, of whom I spoke to you. To whom can I write, and 
what can I say ? I hope I am not entirely without friends, per- 
sonal at least, if not political. . . . But what can I write to them ? 
They do not wiite to me ; and my bump of self-esteem is not large 
enough to enable me to thrust myself before them, and intimate a 
desire of being defended by them. I should like very well, if not 
too much trouble, to have you introduce yourself to E. W. Clap. 
I think, if I have a zealous friend in the world, he is one. He lives 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 315 

out in tlie country, and sees many of the Boston men who go out 
into the country to sleep. The noisy, clamorous Whigs never had 
much political liking for me. I was not sufficiently subservient to 
party discipline. . , . 

It seems a great pity now that I had not formally declined being 
a candidate before this outbreak. Then I could have stood my 
ground, and bade them defiance before the people ; nor should I 
have any doubt, under such circumstances, what their decision 
would be. But now there is so much in what you say about my 
declining looking like fear, or, at any rate, being construed into 
fear, that, in the present condition of things, I hate to do it. Still, 
if it has got to be done before a nominating convention meets, 
perhaps it should be done before long. It will be hardly safe for 
any convention to act before the close of the session of Congress ; 
for it will be impossible to tell how things are to be left at the end 
of it. 

. . . Your friendship seems a thousand times more valuable now, 
in my need, than when, in former days, I knew it to be worth so 
much. 

Yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Aug. 18, 1850. 

. . We are now debating the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation 
Bill in the House. It is quite uncertain when any one of the excit- 
ing questions will be taken up. On those questions, the old 
parties are greatly divided; and many members act upon their own 
judgment, or with reference to the wishes of their constituents at 
home. There is a party, however, which is determined to support 
the Administration, without further inquiry. The truth is, the 
slave-power of the South and the money-power of the North have 
struck hands. The one threatens the Union : the other yields, pro- 
fessing to be in fear of disunion, but really for the purpose of ob- 
taining the profits of trade and of getting a new tariff". The whole 
mercantile press of Boston is under the influence of this power. 
They either come out decidedly, and denounce every thing and 
everybody that stands in the way of getting more money, at what- 



316 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

ever sacrifice of human liberty, like the ' ' Courier, " " Advertiser, ' ' and 
"Post," or like the other papers, the "Traveller," the "Mercantile 
Journal," &e., they maintain silence on the subject while the enemy 
is at work. The " Courier " is the most spiteful and virulent against 
me. They cannot reason me down ; so they try to ridicule me 
down. They copy from the " Springfield Republican." 

Aug. 19. . . . We have no indications yet of what is likely to be 
done with the Texas Boundary BiU. The subject presents some 
points of real difficulty. Different views will be taken of the same 
facts, according to the party medium through which they are seen. 
We ai'e in trying times; but I never felt my mind clearer and 
stronger to do the right, and defy consequences. 

Aug. 20. Since the children of Mammon have opened their 
batteries upon me. Downer wiites me frequently, and says the 
wisest things about political and personal affairs. He is so much 
ahead of the age, that very few will appreciate him. He seems not 
to have any power to lead or create a party ; but he has more 
wisdom than four-fifths of those who constitute parties. He proves 
all the good things I have ever thought of him. 

Aug. 23. I stay at home this morning to write to you. I long 
to be at home ; but the time of our departure cannot be seen by 
any political astronomer. There is a probability that we shall come 
to some of the exciting questions this week. We are as ready now 
to meet them as we ever shall be. The great influence of Mr. 
Webster is brought with full force to bear against all security for 
freedom in the Territories. His name, his reputation for talent, and, 
above all, his power of patronage and influence in the Government, 
tell with prodigious force upon all measures. His going into the 
cabinet may be the salvation of Mr. Fillmore's administration ; but 
it is even more Ukely that it will be fatal to the cause of freedom. 
See what comes of intellect without morality ! 

We had another furious storm last night. It reminded me of the 
last, — the one in which Sumner's brother and Margaret Fuller were 
lost ; and, when I hear the winds howl and sweep so at night, my 
mind always goes out to watch along the seashore, and then I 
cannot but see what the next papers relate of disaster and death. 
I always had a special horror for a shipwreck. It seems to me the 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 317 

most ten'ible form of death that is not ignominious. If, however, 
— and I often have a vivid intellectual perception of this, — we 
regarded death as we should, it would cease to be the dreadful 
spectre that it now is. How much of this, in all after-life, must 
depend upon education ! 

■Washington, Aug. 21, 1850. 
S. Downer, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — The only question on which the sincere friends 
of freedom here have any doubt is the Texas Boundary Bill. Most 
of us, I think, will go against this as it now is ; but suppose it 
could be amended so as to conform its northern line to that of the 
Compromise Bill, and suppose also we could strike out the provision 
which secures the right to Texas to bring forth four slave States, 
what would then be your opinion abovxt suffering it to pass, or help- 
ing to pass it ? This boundary properly settled, I think we could 
count upon all the rest as free territory. 

I see the "New-Bedford Standard," a Democratic Free-soil paper, 
comes out for the boundary as it is. So does the "Nantucket 
Inquirer. " So, I am told, does the ' ' Ploughman, ' ' a neutral paper. 
Doubtless the Whig papers will generally come out for it. 

There is to be a competition between the old Hunkers of both 
parties for Southern support. On this Texan boundary question, 
I prophesy they will carry the country with them. On the Terri- 
torial questions, country or no country, I will never go with them. 
Either no Tenitorial governments, or governments with the Wilmot 
Proviso in them. 

Please give me, as soon as you can, your opinion on the bounda- 
ry matter, and I shall prepare myself for doing what, under all the 
circumstances, seems to be best for the cause. 

Your last letter was very gratifying. You seem to me to take 

the most just, practical, as well as theoretical view of things. 

In great haste, very truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

"Washington, Aug. 25, 1850. 
I must say, my dear Downer, for the friendliness of your letters 
turns the esteem and regard which I have always had for you into 
affection. 



318 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Your view of tlie difficulty of my ease corresponds exactly with 
mine. The sentiment of the old catch, " I cares for nobody, and 
nobody cares for me," is perfectly true when applied to parties. 
No party has felt that I was in full communion with it. The 
" communication," as the magnetizers say, has not been established. 
They may have beheved, what always was and always will be true, 
that, while ready to do any thing for their principles, I would not 
sell myself to their partisan schemes. Hence, in a crisis like this, 
they feel that I am not the man for them. 

From all that I learn, I am led to suppose, that, while every thing 
is done against me that can be done in the lower part of the county, 
there is a state of entire quiescence in the upper. From those 
parts of the district which are in Plymouth and Middlesex Coun- 
ties, I hear almost nothing. I have letters from different parts of 
the State which are as complimentary as my most partial friends 
could desire. They speak of the universal disaffection there is 
towards Webster, and of the sympathy there is for me. But these 
are away from commercial and manufacturing locahties. In such 
resorts, and among men engaged in business, who are susceptible 
on the Mammon side of their nature, I suppose Webster is all- 
powerful. Never was a greater influence exerted than his friends 
are exerting now, here as well as at home ; and I think that the 
Territories have as good a chance to come in without the proviso as 
California has to be admitted as a free State. 

It is impossible for the friends of freedom at home to take any 
but the most general positions now. 

Within the coming month, there will be developments which will 
have decisive influences upon parties and individuals. No conven- 
tions should be held till after the adjournment of Congress. We 
shall then see what foe we have to meet, and what weapons we 
have to fight with. 

On the Texas Boundary Bill I may have an opportunity to say 
something, though not much at length. Texas has been allowed to 
sHde or steal into possession of a great extent of territory to which 
she has no right, — all, or almost all, between the Nueces and the 
Rio Grande, from the Gulf up to New Mexico. The New-Mexicans, 
by fixing the boundary in their constitution at 32° on the east 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 319 

side of the Rio Grande, have cut their friends off from all attempt 
to give them any thing below. My impression is, that if the Texan 
Boundary Bill were amended so as to adopt the compromise line, 
— that is, starting from twenty miles above El Paso, and going 
north-east to the south-west corner of the Indian Territory, — and if 
the provision were stricken out which gives Texas a right to an 
additional slave State, it would be best to vote for it. Please to 
tell me what you think of this, as soon as convenient. 

I do not know exactly on whom to rely in these times. ... I 
will send you one or two letters, that you may see what people say 
to me. . . . Please return these letters to me. I receive any 
amount of this kind, — much more than the amount of the news- 
paper abuse. 

Yours ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, Aug. 28, 1850. 

My dear Downer, — I received yours of the 26th to-day. We 
are at last at the hand-to-hand encounter. The Texas Boundary 
Bill is up. The Omnibus is to be reconstructed, or there will be an 
attempt to do it, and then the Devil is to be harnessed in to take it 
through by daylight. I tremble for the fate of freedom. I fear ovir 
only hope will repose at last on the Territories themselves. A motion 
is now pending to amend the Boundary Bill by adding substantially 
the New-Mexico and Utah Territorial Bills to it. Then another 
motion will be made to add Cahfornia to that. This is the bait. 
It is hoped that the friends of freedom will not venture to vote 
against adding California, so that this amendment will be easily 
effected. But then, California being on the amendment, it is hoped 
that this will carry over a sufficient Northern force to sustain the 
whole ; that is, there are men who will not dare to vote for New 
Mexico and Utah without the proviso, who will venture to face 
their constituents, if, at the same time, they can say they have 
secured freedom to California. But while there is life there is hope. 

The inference which you draw from the entire silence of every 
one of my acquaintances in the city is inevitable. However painful, 
it forces itself irresistibly upon my mind, I have not a friend among 



320 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

them. While I seemed prosperous, and had the leading men of the 
pubhc on my side, they professed friendship ; but now, when I am 
away, and when a most extraordinary conjuncture of ch-cumstances 
has exposed me to the raking fire of all the sons of Mammon and 
all the sycophants of power, I see that they are as heedless of me, 
my character, my interests, my feelings, as though I were one of 
the slaves whom they are willing should be created. It is sadden- 
ing, disheartening. I feel it for myself some : I feel it for human 
nature more. But will I ask them to come to my rescue, and 
fulfil the promise which years of intimacy and of professions have 
made ? No : I will perish before I will beg. And as for this war 
in favor of hberty, and against its contemners, high or low, I will 
pray God for Hfe and strength to carry it on while I live, and for 
the spuit that will bequeath it to my children when I die. 

Yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Aug. 28. 

The moneyed interest of the South protects slavery; and the 
moneyed interest at the North, especially in Massachusetts, or 
wherever cotton is manufactured, sympathizes with that at the 
South. One wants slaves to produce the cotton : the other wants 
many slaves to make cotton cheap. Hence they go together as far 

as they dare ; and our friend said to somebody, he " didn't 

care a damn if there was another slave State," — so much has the 
love of money gangrened his generous soul ! 

At last the cominus, or hand-to-hand fight, has come. The Texas 
Boundary Bill is before us. A very good spirit seems to exist this 
morning ; that is, there is a great deal of joking and laughing 
going on all over the house. Perhaps, however, it is on the prin- 
ciple that persons are prohfic of hon-mots when about to be hung. 

Aug. 29. 

The first question about the Boundary Bill was, " Shall it be 

rejected ? " This was decided in the negative by a very large vote ; 

all its friends as it stands in its present shape, and all who thought 

it could be put by amendments into an acceptable shape, voting 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 321 

in the negative. Every one voted in the negative, except those who 
were determined to go against the bill at all events. Then came an 
amendment to attach the New-Mexico and Utah Bills. This is now 
pending. Should it prevail, then another amendment will be offered 
to attach the California Bill to it ; and this will reconstruct the 
Omnibus. 

An attempt will be made to manage the case, as by parlia- 
mentary tactics, to prevent us from taking a direct vote on the 
Wilmot Proviso, and thus save some of the Northern doughfaces 
from the odium which a direct adverse vote on that question would 
inflict. The Speaker, being in favor of the bills, will recognize the 
right men at the right time, so as to help forward the measure. I 
have the greatest fears that all is lost. 

Sept. 2. 

You may expect, notwithstanding what Miss says, that Mr. 

E will vote with the Northern proslavery men, and help decide 

all the great questions now pending against us. He, like all the 
rest, will be artfal ; and, when he finds a chance to cast a vote 
against slavery which will do slavery no harm, he will be glad to 
improve it ; but in the essentials he will go for them. ... I have 
no doubt the time will come when Mr. Webster's course will be 
seen in the true light ; but it will not be till after the mischief is 
done, and then only individuals will be vindicated, while the cause 
will be ruined. 

Sept. 4. 

We had two or three proslaveiy speeches yesterday, and we have 
been taking some very interesting questions this morning. This 
whole question has become so complicated, that it is difficult to ex- 
plain it. It cannot be done by letter. I hope I shall have a chance 
soon to do it orally. ... I wish every night that you could see our 
sunsets. I get no time to read or to write. To keep up. with the 
business of the House, to prepare myself so as to know how to vote 
conscientiously, occupies my whole time. If I would vote with the 
party, or vote without knowing any thing upon what I vote, it 
would save me a great deal of time. We have just voted to commit 
the Texas Boundary Bill to the Committee of the Whole on the 
State of the Union. This gives us a chance to amend it, and put 



322 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

it in a better shape. The friends of freedom all voted for this; and 
many who do not care for freedom, but who must vote as they did, 
joined us, so that we prevailed by 101 to 99. 

Sept. 6. 

I had no letter from you last night, nor eke this morning. I am 
so sure that you never fail, that I always convict the railroads or 
postmasters, and condemn them. 

I had a sad day yesterday. The day before, Mr. Boyd's amend- 
ment, giving a Territorial Government to New Mexico, not only 
without a proviso against slavery, but with an express provision, that, 
when States are erected, they may be slave States if they wish, was 
voted down ; but yesterday that vote was reconsidered. Then 
Massachusetts members went for it, although our Legislature, the 
last of last April, expressed the most decided opinions to the con- 
trary, and although, before this new Administration, in which Mr. 
Webster takes so conspicuous a part, the whole North, with the 

exception of a part of the cities, was against it. Mr. E has 

voted steadily and uniformly for slavery. It is getting to be a fixed 
law, in my mind, to have no faith in men who make money their god. 
It is amazing into what forms the human mind may be shaped. 
Here are twenty, perhaps thirty, men from the North in this House, 
who, before G-en. Taylor's death, would have sworn, like St. Paul, 
not to eat nor drink until they had voted the proviso, who now, in 
the face of the world, turn about, defy the instructions of their 
States, take back their own declarations a thousand times uttered, 
and vote against it. It is amazing ; it is heart-sickenmg. What 
shaU be done ? I know no other way but through the cause in 
which I have so long worked. May God save our children from 
being, in their day, the cause of such comments by others ! 

P. S. — It is two o'clock, and the infernal bill has just passed. 
Dough, if not mfinite in quantity, is infinitely soft. The North is 
again disgracefully beaten, — most disgracefully. 

Sept. 8, 1850. 

Texas has not a particle of rightful claim to all the north-western 
region this bill contends for ; but she has passed a law claiming it, 
and threatens to make war upon the Union if her claim is not 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 323 

allowed. An extra session of her legislature is now in being. Her 
governor recommends that she should raise and equip men to march 
to Santa Fe, and subdue the people there to her control (who are 
Mexicans, and who hate her) ; and the legislature is now preparing 
means to carry, or rather to seem to carry, their threats into execu- 
tion. Our great Presidency-seekers, Webster, Cass, Clay, &c., 
wish to succumb to her claims. They cannot afford to offend any 
party at the South, because they want the votes of the South. The 
South wants Texas to have all this territory, because Texas is one 
of the most atrocious proslavery States in the Union; and, if any part 
of the territory is set off to New Mexico, they say it may eventually 
be free. Those who think their party will gain something by 
yielding to this false claim of Texas go for it with their leaders. 
Texas would not relinquish an inch of it but for money : therefore 
it is proposed to give her ten milhons of dollars to buy her off. 
It is the most outrageous piece of swindling ever practised. In 
reality, we give her, by this boundary, a hundred thousand more 
square miles than she owns, and ten millions of dollars besides. 
President Taylor meant to maintain the rights of the country ; and, 
if he had hved, we should have tried strength with the miserable 
braggarts of Texas : but, since his death, the whole policy of the 
Administration is changed, and with that, owing to their power and 
patronage, Congress is demorahzed, and the bill has passed, and the 
Territories have governments without any prohibition of slavery. 
California is admitted as a free State ; and that is all the compensa- 
tion we have. 

I am sick at heart, and disgusted at the wickedness of men. 

Sept. 9. 

Eureka ! Eureka ! or at least almost Eureka ! The House has 
passed a resolution this morning to adjourn three weeks from to-day. 
It must be acted upon in the Senate ; but I think they are tired 
enough to go home, and that it will not be postponed longer. This 
will bring it to the very last day of the month, and I shall almost 
count the houi'S till it comes. 

Read Mr. Underwood's speech on the Texas Boundary Bill, and 
understand it, and you need read nothing else on the subject. 



324 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

The politicians and the Texas bond-holders had a sort of public 
frolic on Saturday evening, after the bill for the admission of Cali- 
fornia, and for the establishment of a Territorial Government for 
Utah, was passed. Texas stock, which, on the 1st of January last, 
was not worth more than five or six cents on the dollar, will now be 
worth one dollar and five or six cents ! This bill appropriates ten 
milhons of dollars. Think, then, what immense and corrupt 
influences have been brought to bear upon the decision of this 
freedom-or-slavery question ! . . . One of the most extreme antislavery 
men in all the North, who had given the strongest pledges, made 
the most emphatic declarations, and defied all consequences in the 
most unreserved manner, went over as soon as Mr. Webster was 
appointed Secretary of State, and has voted on the proslavery side 
ever since. He has been talking for some time about going to 
California, and, this morning, has notified the House of his resigna- 
tion, and started for New York. See if, before six months have 
elapsed, he does not have an office. It wrings my heart to see such 
venality. 

West Eoxbuky, Sept. 9, 1850. 

Dear Sir, — I suppose that any word of commendation which I 
could utter would seem to you as a very doubtful compliment ; for, 
if it is a desirable thing laudari a viro laudato, it is undesirable 
to be praised by a viro odioso. Still, I cannot help saying to you 
how much I honor and esteem you for the services you have ren- 
dered to your country and mankind since you entered Congress. 
I thought, at the time you first went there, you would find more 
trouble there than with the Boston schoolmasters and such poor 
things as Matthew Hale Smith. It seems to me, not only that you 
have done a great service by your speeches on slavery, but by what 
you have done in opposition to Mr. Webster. Excuse me for say- 
ing so ; but there are some things in your Notes which it grieved 
me to see there. They weakened your position ; they gave your 
doubtful friends an opportunity to pass over to Webster's side; 
and to your real foes they gave an opportunity of making out a 
case before the public. Still, to candid men, it must be plain, from 
your Notes, that Mr. Webster is exceedingly base. In doing this, 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 325 

you have done a great service. Webster has often been attacked, 
but ahuost wholly by political rivals or mere partisans, neither of 
whom were sincere in the charges against him. You attack him on 
moral grounds. I think your attack must disturb him more than 
all ever written against him before now. But, in the mean time, 
you are continually or often attacked yourself, your language mis- 
interpreted, your motives assailed. There is nobody to defend 
you. Some cannot ; others dare not. Then some of the men you 
have relied upon were never worthy of your confidence, and will do 
nothing. You have crossed the path of some selfish men by your 
theories of benevolence, and mortified them by your own life ; and 
they will pay you for both. Some men would gladly have written 
in your defence ; but they would only bring you into trouble. You 
saw how " Codus Alexandricus," in the " Advertiser," tried to 
couple you with me ; and you doubtless appreciated the benevolence 
of the attempt. I write to you chiefly to suggest to you, whether 
it would not be a good plan for you to write another letter to your 
constituents, on the state of the country, the conduct of public 
men (above all, of Webster) , and your own relations to the wicked 
measures of the past Congress. It seems to me you might, in this 
way, orient yourself before the public, and give them a good deal 
of information which they need and want. I suppose, of course, you 
knew the attempt made in Boston (and by a few in New York) to 
defeat your election this autumn. Marshall P. Wilder is thought 
of by some men for your successor. Such a letter as you might 
write would settle that matter. 

I beg you not to answer this letter, which will only occupy your 
time ; but believe me truly your friend and servant, 

THEO. PARKER. 

Sept. 10. 

This is Tuesday, my black-chalk day ; for, on this day, I get no 
letter from home. The House is now discussing the question, 
whether the representatives from California shall be admitted as 
members of the House. They are objected to because they were 
chosen by the people long before California became a State. The 
bill to admit California was signed by the President yesterday, and 



326 LIFE OF l^ORACE MANN. 

these claimants were chosen nearly a year ago : so that they were 
chosen to represent a State before there was any such State. 

What a mighty country ours is ! It has all the means of greats 
uess but intelligence and integrity. In these how deficient it is ! 
I hope Grod will let us live through our youthful folhes and vices, 
as he does some individuals ; and that, later in life, something may 
be done to atone for the folhes of these early days. 

The time for our adjournment is fixed. Then — oh then ! I 
will not think too much of what may lie between me and my hopes. 

Sept. 12. 

What I wished to tell you yesterday was what Miss Dix had 
just told me about her hospital in New Jersey. One gentleman 
has given money enough — several hundred dollars — to place a 
fountain in the yard ; another to buy a magic lantern for the amuse- 
ment of the patients ; and she had just asked a Sir. King, a mem- 
ber of the House, to give her money for a library, and he had given 
it. So she was all smiles and delight when I saw her. Think of 
her going round, first to establish hospitals; then to fill them, and to 
take care of them ; and then to enrich them with libraries and 
apparatus, and beautify them with embellishments ! 

I have been writing so far while the clerk was calling the yeas 
and nays on the Fugitive-slave Bill, — an outrageous bill ; not so 
bad as the one I denounced in my second letter, but one which 
will make abolitionists liy battalions and regiments. 

It has just passed by a vote of 105 to 73, — an enormous 
majority. I think this bill will inflame the country more than the 
Territorial bills ; but I do not know but the nerve of the country 
has been so often excited, that it has lost its susceptibility. I can- 
not speak with any composui-e of this series of diabolical measures. 
What makes it all so temble is, that these bills passed by 
treachery, — the grossest treachery of those who were chosen to do 
directly the opposite thing. I wish I had my former force with 
which to curse the measures, if not the men ! 

Washington, Sept. 10, IMO. 
My dear Downer, — ... You see all is gone. The influence 
of the Administration became all-powerful. E voted in com- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 327 

mittee against the Wilmot Proviso, direct. D was swept away. 

He voted on the first day against the Texas Boundary Bill, when it 
was alone ; and the next day in favor of it, with New Mexico at- 
tached. There will be the most vigorous efforts to wheel the Whigs 
into line. Will they wheel? All motives on the surface will 
prompt them to do so. Thousands will say, ' ' What can we do better? 
It is past : it cannot be remedied. Abandon the past, and go for 
the future." This will be the superficial argument ; but I mistake 
if the Whig party has not received a wound from which it v?ill 
never recover. Good-by ! 

Ever yours, 

HORACE MANN. 



Washington, Sept. 13, 1850. 
S, Downer, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — Is it true that you say, or that you have been 
informed, that I have written any apologetic or any explanatory or 
deprecatory letter to the editor of the " Boston Bee," which he is 
privately showing ? 

It certainly shows native genius when men can build so large a 
superstructure of falsehood on so small a foundation of truth, I 
will tell you the whole story, so that you may see how big a bird 
can be hatched out of a small egg. 

Some time during the present session, — I think, last winter, — 

one of the editors of the " Bee," Mr. R , called on me here. I 

saw him several times, and he appeared friendly, and our interviews 
were agreeable ; that is, to me. He asked some favor of me, which 
I gladly rendered. He then expressed his thanks, quite as warmly 
as I could have, desired ; told me that his paper had done me in- 
justice formerly (during my controversy with the Boston schoolmas- 
ters) ; said he resisted it at the time, but was overcome by his part- 
ners; and then expressed to me, in strong terms, his regret for the 
injury that had been done me. I gave him to understand, that, at 
the time, I had felt the injustice, but that the occasion had passed 
away, and with it almost all recollection of it ; and that I should 
be none the less ready to do him a favor when occasion should offer. 

In July or August last, when the " Bee " published that gross 



328 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

falsehood, that I (with others) had visited ]\Ir. Fillmore, and had 
interfered to persuade him not to appoint Mr. Webster as a member 

of his Cabinet, the interviews which I had had with Mr. R , 

his apology for the wrong done me by the " Bee," &c., came to 
my mind. At that period, the " Bee " had, for some time, been 
assailing me through what was called a "Washington correspond- 
ent." Under these circumstances, I thought I would write a letter 

to Mr. R , remind him of our foi-mer intercourse, and put him 

upon his bearings as a man of honor and truth. I did not know 
his partners, and did not wish to wi"ite to them, or put myself in 
their hands in any way. I thought, if I had not entirely mistaken 

the character of Mr. R , I would prevent further abuse and 

falsification by appealing to him. I therefore wi"ote him the letter 
marked private^ or confidential, in which I referred to our former 
interview, reminded him of his apology, and remonstrated with him 
for the course taken in charging me with what I had not done. 
There was not a word in the letter which a gentleman might not 
write or receive ; nothing clandestine, nothing partisan ; no threats 

for anger, no intercessions for favor. Not knowing Mr. R 's 

partners, and at the same time knowing how such things get dis- 
torted and misrepresented and falsified when they pass through a 
partisan medium, I wrote to him alone ; and I can hardly conceive 
that he should show the letter, even to his partners. Certainly, if I 
did not entirely mistake his character as a man of honor, he cannot 
have been showing, that letter to the public or to individuals, or 
suggesting that there is one idea in it unworthy of me, as a man of 
truth and sincerity, to feel or to express. 

I desire, therefore, that you would go to Mr. R , and, if the 

letter is in being, ask him to show it to you (for which this is my 
permission), and learn for yourself whether it contains any thing 
which I might not write, or any thing which would authorize him to 
break the seal of silence by showing it. 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 329 

Washington, Sept. 13, 1850. 

My dear Downer, — I wrote you nothing about affairs ; and 
how could I ? The atmosphere is full of treachery. If what was 
done about New Mexico and Texas shocks every honest mind, what 
will be said of the Fugitive-slave Bill "? 

By the way, in the " Boston Courier " of Tuesday they pretend 
to give the Texas Boundary Bill ; but they wholly omit the clause 
at the end, by which an additional slave State is given to Texas. 
So I see, in the " Union " of this morning, they profess to give the 
Fugitive-slave Bill, but leave out from the fifth section one of the 
most obnoxious and outrageous provisions which the bill contains. 
I have seen these bills quoted falsely in other Northern papers. Is 
this ignorance, or falsehood ? 

You do not tell me how this series of measures strikes the North- 
ern mind. Are they all dead in Massachusetts ? Will there be no 
re-action ? or will the Whigs face about, and go for slavery in 1850, 
as the Democrats did for Texas in 1846 ? . . . 

We had no chance to amend the Fugitive-slave Bill. It was 
hardly anticipated that not a moment's debate or chance for amend- 
ment would be allowed. . . . 

If the friends of freedom do not rally on this, they are dead for 
half a century. 

Does the " Atlas " lie down, and take it without one kick '? Do 
all the Boston papers take command, as expressed by Byron? — 

" Kiss the rod ; 
For, if you don't, I'U lay it on, by God ! " 

Yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Sept. 13, 1850. 

I wrote you word yesterday what an infernal day's work we did. 
The Fugitive-slave Bill was driven through under the gag. The 
floor was assigned to Mr. Thompson, a Pennsylvania Democrat, 
who made a speech of nearly an hour long, and then called for the 
previous question, which was sustained ; and so aU possibility of de- 
bate or of amendment was precluded. 



B30 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Sept. 14. ... I do not think Mr. Webster has any chance for 
the Presidency. The South, having used him, will fling him away. 
But that he neither does nor will see. My own opinion is, that, 
notwithstanding all tliis billing and cooing of the heads of the hos- 
tile parties, there will be a deadly fight between them ere long. 
They have united to settle this question satisfactorily to the South, 
so that they might challenge Southern votes. It has been a com- 
petition for political power, stimulated, in regard to some of them, 
by the venality growing out of the Texas ten millions. 

Sept. 15. There has been a very sharp debate in the Senate, in 
which the Southern men have rode and overrode Mr. Winthrop, 
and hunted up all the ugly things they could say about Massachu- 
setts, and pitched them at him. I do not think Mr. Winthrop has 
sustained himself very well. He ought to have carried the war into 
Afiica, or at least to have repelled the intruders from his own terri- 
tory. When we speak of the South as they are, the first thing they 
do is to ransack our old history ; and whatever they can find either 
against the law of toleration as we now consider it, or the duties of 
humanity as a higher civilization exemplifies and expounds them, 
they bring forward. They have never yet been properly answered. 
If some such man as Sumner was in the seat, he would turn the 
tables upon them. 

The South are more rampant than ever. They feel their triumph. 
Two or three times within the last week, the " Union," the South- 
em Democratic organ here, has declared, that, if such or such a 
tiling is done, the Union will totter to its centre. Her interminable 
cry will now be, if she cannot have her own way, that the Union is 
tumbling to pieces. We are to have this idea of dissolution as the 
supplement for all argument, and the arsenal of all weapons. There 
is a momentary lull ; but the presidency-seekers will soon open a 
deadly fire upon each other. 

Sept. 16. 

I have just come from the library, in one of whose alcoves sits 
Miss Dix, and fills the members that she calls about her with 
her divine magnetism. When I see her and some others, how 
I do long to have her portion of the human race rise to their true 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 331 

condition! I am for "woman's rigtts," in the highest sense of 
the word ; not for her being made a politician, a soldier, a judge, 
or a president, but for her entering that glorious sphere of benevo- 
lence which Nature has opened, but which the selfishness and short- 
sightedness of men have hitherto closed up. . . . She is full of 
anxiety about her bill now before Congress. She reminds me of 
my old anxiety for some of my educational measures ; and in this 
particularly, that I see, that, as soon as she can accomplish her pres- 
ent plans, she has others lying behind, and ready to be brought 
forward to take the place of the successful ones. 

One fortnight from to-day, we close ! 

I hope to have but one more black Tuesday in this place. . . . 

Sept. 17. 

There is a gi^eat rush here of the Tariff party. Mr. Webster has 
held out the idea all summer, that, if we would surrender liberty, 
the South would withhold their opposition to a tariff. This is the 
idea that has worked such a wonderful change in Boston, and in 
those parts of the State connected by business with it ; and almost 
all parts of the State are so connected. It is the pecuniary senso- 
rium, and the nerves reach to all the extremities ; for it is within 
twelve hours of every part of the State by railroads, &c. This idea, 
therefore, that money is to be made by a settlement of the difficulties 
in favor of slavery, has been the corrupting idea of the year, and it 
has worked its way with prodigious efficacy. Several attempts have 
been made to get a tariff measure through ; but, as yet, all have 
failed. I suppose this to be the reason why there is such a flock- 
ing here now from Lowell and Boston. How disgraceful it is ! and 
yet, if these motives were exposed, they would first be denied, and 
then the author of the charge would be sacrificed. It is a corrupt 
state of affairs ; but I think not all who are engaged in it either see 
or feel how base it is. 

It is this class of people who are making the outcry against me. 

Washington, Sept. 21, 1850. 
Rev. S. J. Mat. 

My dear Sir, — ... You have seen how Websterism overrides 

every thing in Boston. A large portion of the voters in my district 



332 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

belong in Boston, and have no sympatliies or interests but in Boston, 

and only come out into the country to sleep and vote. They are 

exciting an opposition to me, to the extent of their influence and 

Webster's money. Were it not for this, I should long ago have 

positively declined to be a candidate again. The posture of affairs 

may compel me to withhold the execution of this purpose. ... I 

have no heait to write a word on the course of things in Congress 

this session. The slaveholders have overthrown principles, and put 

them to rout as Napoleon did armies. 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Sept. 19, 1850. 

A Mr. Venable, of North Carolina, is making a speech against 
any special efforts to colonize Liberia. He thinks the negro settle- 
ments there will fail ; that the settlers are incapable of civilization, 
and will soon relapse into barbarism. This is a fine commentary 
upon that view of the special providences which justifies the slave- 
trade and slavery in this country for these hundred years, in order 
to return the race to the land from which it came, and thus intro- 
duce or transfer our civilization into that region of the earth ! 

The days wear away beautifully. Ought any one to be placed 
in such a position as to deske the lapse of time ? . . . 

Sept. 20. 

It is truly appalling to see the swarms of men who come on here 
from the North — and a fall proportion of them are from Massa- 
chusetts — tore-enforce the interests of the manufacturers, — cotton, 
woollen, and ii'on particixlarly. Oh, if there were such alacrity, such 
zeal, such effort, for what is good ! But though I have no doubt 
such a state of society will come at some time, yet that time is a 
great way off. If it is, then why should we not try to bring it 
nearer, as we may do ? 

. . . Last night I was taking my accustomed walk on the terrace, 
when there spread all over the western horizon one of the most 
gorgeous sunsets I ever beheld. Then I wanted more eyes than 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 333 

mine to see, and more sensibilities to feel wliat provision has been 
made to gratify sentiments whose use the mere utilitarian cannot 
perceive. The world needs educating up to the enjoyment of the 
pleasures which are strewn around them. So much beauty exists 
unknown and unperceived ! So it is with truth ; so it is with 
affection. 

Sept. 21. 

The Fugitive-slave Bill is very much altered from what it was 
when originally offered. That bill made all postmasters in the 
United States judges, who might decide the question of freedom or 
slavery. As it stands, the courts of the United States are author- 
ized to appoint as many commissioners as they may think fit ; and 
these commissioners are also authorized to appoint marshals (whose 
duty it will be to serve legal process) , as many as they see fit, for 
making arrests, &c. : so that there will be no deficiency of officers 
to carry out its nefarious purposes. It is a surrender complete and 
abject, like those which characterized the baseness of the courtiers 
in the time of the Charleses and the Jameses. Posterity will treat 
the conduct of our leading men as Macaulay has treated that of the 
sycophants and courtiers of the Stuarts. 

Sept. 23. 

For four or five days, we have had as beautiful weather here as 
can be had anywhere out of Eden. 

We shall have a crowded week ; public business pressing, which 
can hardly be postponed without arresting the wheels of Government; 
private claims urging attention, and seeking any sleepy mood of the 
House to steal in and get something from the full pockets of Uncle 
Sam ; and members, tu-ed, disgusted, and homesick, deserting their 
seats, and going home. In some States, the elections will come on 
veiy soon ; and such of the members as are candidates will feel too 
anxious about their own private political fortunes to stay longer and 
attend to the pubhc business. It will be a most deplorable sight, 
such combinations of selfish interests, and such dissolving of com- 
binations whenever new interests intervene. It is a sad spectacle, 
I assure you ; but I am telling tales out of school. 

It is twelve o'clock. One week from this hour, no matter what 



334 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

is going on, — an orator in the midst of a speech, or the Speaker 
himself with a vote but half declared, — as soon as twelve o'clock 
comes, down will come the hammer, and this session of Congress 
will be adjourned. Let it come ! 

Sept. 25, 1850. 

Poor, dear Miss Dix ! Her bill has failed this morning in the 
House ; or, at least, it has been referred to the Committee of the 
Whole on the State of the Union, from which it cannot be re- 
turned should the session continue for a year. I went to carry her 
the news; but she has not come up to the library to-day. 

Yesterday, when her bill came up, men were starting up on all 
sides with their objections ; but to-day the point vinder discussion is, 
to pay an additional sum to the soldiers in the Mexican war for ex- 
penses of coming home, and almost all are in favor of it. It is 
amazing how war-mad all the South and South-west are. Conquest 
and numbers constitute their idea of glory. Christianity is nineteen 
hundred years distant from them. 

I have not yet had time to read S 's letter ; but her letters 

have a charm for me always. I wonder how so much poetry as she 
has ever kept itself from flowing into rhyme. I am sure she might 
make her everlasting worldly fortune by writing songs for children, 
reasoning like a fairy on all the realities and moralities of life. 
Hasn't she the word-faculty? or what is the reason she doesn't do it ? 

I am glad Mr. Pierce has arrived.* How deep the feeling with 
which we look back upon perils escaped and the object of our labors 
secured ! It must be a Uttle more than a year since we had the fete 
that "welcomed" him away. I rather envied you your visit to 
him. I should really like to hail him again. Why could not the 
old soul transmigrate into another body ? However, he has done 
his work, — a gi'eat work ; one that can never be undone. What he 
has done is not the erection of a structure that will not increase, and 
will decay, but it is the planting and early culture of a seed which 
will grow, and cannot but grow, and must protect other trees of the 
same healthful influences in their growth. " Lame, cold, and 

* Cyrus Pierce, of the West Newton Normal School. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 335 

numb " as lie is, there are few young men tliafc could equal him in 
the race. 

It is very cool here, — " autumnal," as you say ; and to-day it is 
beginning to storm. I am always glad to hear of you "gardening; " 
and, when you are out, the children are out too. 

Washikgton, Sept. 24, 1850. 

My dear Downer, — I have but time to say a word. ... 

There has just been another desperate attempt to get a tariff. 
Messrs. A and G were put forward to pioneer the meas- 
ure. Mr. G moved to reconsider a bill from the Committee 

on Commerce, giving Canada vessels a right to lade and unlade in 
our ports, &c., so that it might be sent to the Committee of the 
Whole on the State of the Union, to be there amended by a tariif. 
So the motion prevailed. Then a motion to lay the subject on the 
table failed. Then came the question about committing with in- 
structions, which failed by a large vote. So the whole thing 
slumped. We are surrounded by lobby members from Pennsylva- 
nia and New England. The men who have been ready to barter 
away liberty and blood and souls for profits have failed again mis- 
erably. Mr. Webster's promise made at the Revere House, that, if 
the North would go for conciliation (that is, the surrender of liber- 
ty), they could then have "beneficial legislation" (that is, a tar- 
iff ), has not been fulfilled. 

I regret as much as any one the suffering of our laboring classes ; 
but there is a retribution in all this which gratifies one's moral 
sense. 

Grood-by to you, my friend ! 

HORACE MANN. 

Wkst Newton, Nov. 15, 1850. 

My dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe, — I received your brief note 
from London, dated Sept. 15 ; and afterwards your letter from 
Edinburgh of Sept. 29. The letter gave me what I must call an 
unlawful pleasure : for it fully acquitted me of what my own con- 
science had long told me I was guilty of; namely, neglect of you. 
Mary has often said to me, "Now, my dear, you must write 



336 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

to Mr. Combe; " and I had as often replied, " Yes, I must and 
will." But, like all other promises, these were made under the 
tacit and implied condition of possibility. But the possibihty never 
came ; and, before I get through, I must tell you why. I have re- 
ceived a copy of the Annual Report of your school; which Mary and 
I read together, as we always do every thing that comes from your 
pen. Your Life of Dr. Combe was sent here before I came home. 
Mary began to read it, but put it off that we might read it together. 
Since I came home, we have begun it, and advanced nearly half 
way in it; but other engagements of one kind and another have in- 
terrupted. I find it very minute in its details; so much so, perhaps, 
as to be objectionable to the general reader : but to me, who know 
the subject and the writer, and who have such a deep personal inter- 
est in every thing they have said or done, it never loses its in- 
terest. I should as soon complain of an absent friend for giving me 
all the incidents of his fortune, when, the more of each twenty-four 
hours he describes, the better. I like to read his letters. I delight, 
and profit too, in reading a book which never departs from the phren- 
ological dialect, and refers every thing to phrenological principles. 
It is like a review of a delightful study. 

When first offered the nomination for Congress, I had serious 
doubts about accepting it : but I was in my twelfth year as Secre- 
tary of the Board of Education ; and, while acting in an official capar 
city, I was under the trammels of neutrahty between all sects and 
parties. It was just at the crisis when the destiny of our new Ter- 
ritory of about six hundred thousand square miles in extent was 
about to be detennined. All of human history that I ever knew 
respecting the contest for political and religious freedom, and my 
own twelve-years' struggle to imbue the pubhc mind with an under- 
standing not merely of the law but of the spirit of religious liberty, 
had so magnified in my mind the importance of free institutions, 
and so intensified my horror of all fonns of slavery, that even the 
importance of education itself seemed for a moment to be eclipsed. 

Besides, my fidelity to principles had made some enemies, who, 
to thwart me, would resist progress, but who, if I were out of the 
way, would be disarmed, and would co-operate where they had com- 
bated. . . . The commencement of the session in December last was 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 337 

full of excitement. We voted three weelfs before we succeeded in 
making choice of a Speaker ; the issue being between freedom and 
slavery, modified by its bearing upon the next Presidential election. 
In the Senate there were three men, Clay, Webster, and Cass, each 
one of whom had staked body, re])utation, and soul on being the 
next President. In 1848, Gen. Cass had surrendered all that he 
could think of, as principle, for the sake of winning the Southern 
vote. Clay had just been returned to the Senate, and Webster had 
been thrown into the background, partly for his mighty advocacy 
of freedom, and partly because he had no skill in flattering the 
people. Clay devised a plan of indirect opposition to the policy of 
Gren. Taylor, which, should it be unsuccessful, would hardly injure 
its originator, but, if crowned with success, would place him high 
and conspicuous above the President himself. 

Up to this time, at least ostensibly, Webster had maintained his 
integrity. But he supposed his final hour had come. Cass as a 
Democrat, and Clay as a "VAIiig, had offered to immolate freedom to 
win the South. Webster must do more than either, or abandon 
hope. He consented to treachery, and, to make his reward sure, 
proposed to do more villanies than were asked of him. His 7th of 
March speech was an abandonment of all he had ever said in 
defence of the great principles of freedom. It was a surrender of 
the great interests of freedom in the new Territories then in issue, 
and it was wanton impiety against the very cause of liberty. We 
were not merely amazed, but astounded by it. He artfully con- 
nected the pecuniary interests of the North with this treachery to 
freedom. Our manufacturing interests were in a deplorable condi- 
tion. He told the manufacturers, that, if they would surrender free- 
dom, they could have a tariff. This assurance was repeated in a 
thousand covert forms. It brought out the whole force of Mam- 
mon. One of the Boston newspapers, the "Daily Advertiser," 
whose whole circulation was among the wealthy and aristocratic, 
took ground in his defence at once. Another of them, the " Cou- 
rier," sold itself immediately for mere money to him and to his 
friends ; and such an overbearing and tlireatening tone was assumed 
by his whole pretorian guard, that every other paper in the city, 
however clamorous it had been for freedom before (except the 

22 



338 LIFE OF HOKACE MANN. 

"Liberator"), was silenced. The press in Boston, for the last 
six months, had been very much in the condition of the press 
of Paris. 

T came home to visit my family in April on account of ill health 
in it, and staid a month. The public mind had not recovered from 
its shock; and Mr. Webster's "retainers," as the "Advertiser" 
unluckily called them, were active in fastening their views upon the 
re-awakened consciousness of the public. I conversed with many 
very prominent individuals. I found they agreed with me fully in 
regard to Mr. Webster's treachery, and in private would speak 
freely, but in public would not commit themselves to a word. This 
was grievous, and reminded me of what you used to say so often, — 
that our people have not confidence enough in truth. I was invited 
by a respectable portion of my constituents to address them. I 
wrote them a letter instead. In that letter, I reviewed the course 
of the leading men, — Cass, Clay, and Webster. I pointed out Mr. 
Webster's inconsistencies and enormities in as searching a manner 
as I could, but in a very respectful tone. He and his friends swore 
vengeance against me at once. 

When I returned to Washington, he cut me. He indulged in 
offensive remarks in private intercourse. In a letter written to some 
citizens who sought to uphold his course, he put in the most arro- 
gant sneer that his talent could devise, and published it. That 
gave me a chance to review his letter, and to discuss the question 
of trial by jury for alleged fugitives. In another letter, he made 
another assault upon me. This, too, I answered. Just at this 
moment, Gen. Taylor died. The Vice-President, a weak and irres- 
olute-minded man, succeeded. Mr. Webster was appointed Secre- 
tary of State ; and he thus became omnipotent, and almost omni- 
present. The cause of freedom was doomed. Thousands saw what 
the event would be, and rushed to the conclusion. Three-fifths of 
all the "Whig presses went over in a day. The word of command 
went forth to annihilate me ; and, if it was not done, it was for no 
want of good will or effort on the part of the hired executioners. 
From having been complimented on all sides, I was misrepresented, 
maligned, travestied, on all sides. Not a single Whig paper in 
Boston defended me. Most of them had an article or more against 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 339 

me every day. The convention to nominate my successor was 
packed by fraudulent means, and I was thrown overboard. ... To 
bring the odium theologicum to crush me, an evangelical was taken 
as my opponent. I took the stump, and put the matter to my con- 
stituents face to face. 

The election took place last Monday, and I have beaten them all 
by a handsome majority. This is something of a personal triumph, 
therefore ; but, as a triumph of principle, it is of infinitely more 
value. Nothing can exceed the elation of my friends, or the morti- 
fication of my enemies. The latter feel like a man who has com- 
mitted some roguery, and failed of obtaining his purpose in doing it. 

This triumph of principle in Massachusetts gave inde- 
scribable pleasure to Mr. Mann. All the sanguine hopes 
of many friends, who were deeply interested in the result, 
for his sake as well as for that of the good cause, had 
failed to give him one ray of hope that the election would 
be carried in his favor. He was quite content to be the 
means of defeating the triumph of the other party, which 
Would have been such a lasting disgrace to the State ; but 
expected no more. He had been called up at niglit more 
than once by bands of his friends, who went from town to 
town in the district to attend the various conventions, to 
hear their assurances that his election was probable : but 
all their eloquence had failed to convince him of any 
greater success than this, so discouraged and heart-sick 
for his State had he become from the evidences of Mr. 
Webster's malign influence ; and when a relative in his 
family went, late at night, to the village to count the 
votes, and brought back a favorable answer, he was 
equally incredulous, and coolly proposed to wait till he 
could count tliem himself when the newspaper should 
come in the morning. The young lady's ardor was quite 
Cooled down ; but, on descending the hill in the morning, 
she met the village omnibus on its way up, and the driver 



340 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

swung his hat with the announcement. She flew back to 
be the first to tell tlie news, but could not speak when she 
arrived. The carriage passed the gate, however; and the 
vociferous demonstrations assured Mr. Mann of the fact. 
He walked the floor some time without speaking, and at 
last, " Thank God for Massachusetts ! " were the first 
words he could utter ; and those who knew him best knew 
that the choked voice was not that of a selfish emotion. 
It had not been his intention to stand as candidate for a 
Congressional election again ; for he felt that the odds 
against freedom had been so great, that it was a waste of 
his time, which could be better employed in the good 
work of bringing up the nation to the desired point, than 
by sitting in Congressional halls whose very atmosphere 
polluted the breatli of freemen. But the state of affairs at 
that critical juncture forbade him to leave his post then, 
even though he were to have been sacrificed by remaining 
firm to it. A defeat at that time, and under the circum- 
stances, would have been very disastrous to him ; but he 
was not accustomed to make himself the first consideration. 
He really belonged to no party. The Whig party, which 
had elected him for certain purposes, had proved recreant 
to their own principles, and had left him standing just 
where they put him. He went to Congress the first time 
because his constituents tliought him the best man, at 
that juncture, to carry out the principles of Mr. Adams 
in tlie cause of freedom: they had changed, but he had 
not changed ; and it was not his fault if he stood without 
a party for a time. 

In October, 1850, Mr. Webster, in a letter from Franklin, N.H., 
to a committee of gentlemen in New York, says, — 

" I concur, gentlemen, in all the political principles contained in 
the resolutions, a copy of which ]ias been sent to me ; and I stand 
pledged to support those principles, publicly and privately, now and 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 341 

always, to the full extent of my influence, and by the exertion of 
every faculty which I possess." 

Two of these resolutions were as follows : — 

''Resolved, That we cordially approve of the recent measures of 
Congress for the adjustment of the dangerous questions arising out 
of the acquisition of territory under the treaty of Mexico, &c. 

''Resolved, That the Fugitive-slave Bill is in accordance with the 
express stipulations of the Constitution of the United States ; . . . 
and that Congress, in passing a law which should be efficient for 
carrying out the stipulations, &c., acted in full accordance with the 
letter and spirit of that instrument ; and that we will sustain this 
law and the execution of it by all lawful means." 

Washington, Dec. 14, 1850. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I am glad to hear from you, and that you think 
of putting on the harness again. I guess the "old clock-work" 
will go well yet. Whatever I can do for you, I shall do with great 
alacrity. I doubt the expediency of establishing another Normal 
school yet a while in Massachusetts. Those already in existence 
must be filled and crowded before another will prosper. I do not 
know what sphere you intend to fill : the one you talked of with 

A would open a noble field for usefulness, though I should 

struggle against all secondary causes that should threaten to remove 
yon from Massachusetts. 

My journey to Washington was in some respects pleasant. I 
was greeted all along the way by many persons known and 
unknown to me ; and, on arriving here, I found the controversy 
between myself and Mr. Webster had really assumed a national 
notoriety and conspicuousness. Whigs and Democrats had a common 
exultation, though it was probably more for his defeat than for my 
victory. . . . 

Yours very truly, 

HOEACE MANN. 

Washington, Dec. 22, 1850. 

My dear Downer, — I see by the date of my letter that it is 
Forefathers'' Day; and I cannot but ask myself what the stem old 



342 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Puritans would say, were they here to witness the degeneracy of 
their sons. Evil days have surely come upon us. There is a very 
considerable number here, it is true, who are still faithful to their 
principles ; but they are embarrassed and oppressed vrith the palpa- 
ble fact before them that they are in the hands of the Philistines, 
and that nothing can be done in behalf of the measures they have 
so steadfastly and earnestly contended for. The Administration 
has placed itself on open, avowed, proslavery ground. They will 
be prescriptive of enemies, and bountiful to friends ; and I fear that 
what Mr. Webster once said will prove true, — that he had never 
known an Administration to set its heart upon any measure which 
it did not accomplish. There will be a giving-way somewhere ; and 
all effective opposition will be frightened away or bought up. 

But to what a pass has Northern recreancy brought us ! You 
see the list of conditions which the South are everywhere laying 
down, upon compliance with which, in every item, the Union can 
alone be preserved, — no abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia ; no imposition of a proviso on any Territory, — which 
looks to its future acquisition, and is meant to forestall its doom ; 
no objection to the admission of any State, whether from Texas, 
New Mexico, Utah, or from any new acquisitions, on account 
of the proslavery constitution, &c. And now the Governor of 
Virginia, in a special message to the Legislature, has proposed the 
holding of a national convention, at which the North shall appear 
as suppliant, shall promise all that the South demands, and shall lie 
down on her belly, and eat as much dirt as she can hold. It is said 
there is no end to discoveries ; and certainly there is no end to dis- 
coveries in humiliation. One would think that even the soulless 
instigators of Northern Union meetings would recoil on the brink 
of this abyss of degradation. But such is the progress of things ; 
and, however low they go, a " lower deep" still opens before them. 
Even the " National Intelligencer," with all its proslavery instincts, 
shudders at this pit. 

What shall we do here ? I declare myself ready, for one, to do, 
to the utmost of my ability, whatever may appear under the cir- 
cumstances to be advisable. I find it to be true, as I have always 
said, that there is no more chance of repeahng or modifying the 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 343 

Fugitive-slave Law than there is of making a free State out of South 
Carolina. Still, my own opinion is that we ought to make a 
demonstration upon it. My belief is that there never was so much 
need of contending against the slave-power as now. There is far 
more reason for a rally now than in 1848. Then a great prize was 
in imminent peril. Had Cass been made President in consequence 
of a diversion of "V^Tiigs into the Free-soil ranks, it is, to my mind, 
as certain as any unfulfilled event, that California would have been 
a slave State, and New Mexico and Utah would have had slavery 
had they desired it. This great interest was put in jeopardy by that 
movement ; though, fortunately, God sent us a deliverance. 

But now there is no such immediate and magnificent stake to be 
lost or won. We cannot lose any thing now, because we have lost 
all. Our dangers are prospective. Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, are 
the game now afoot. We must be prepared for the time when 
these shall be the subject of contest. We must see that we have 
Congresses that will stand their ground ; and therefore the anti- 
slavery principle must not be suffered to sleep. . . . 

Yours as ever, 



H. M. 



LETTER FROM GEO. E. BAKER, ESQ. 



Dear Mrs. Mann, — I send herewith a copy of the letter alluded 
to in my note to W. W. & Co. The original I have bound with 
other valuable letters and autographs, and I cannot detach it with- 
out injury. 

Your husband's memory is very dear to me. I was very early 
impressed by his character, and you know how durable early im- 
pressions are. While the admonitions of the other " committee men " 
— many of them able men — have faded away, the counsels he gave 
nearly forty years ago in the old schoolhouse are still alive with 
me. And then it was easy and natural for me, little boy as I was, 
to see whom my father esteemed above all other men, although Mr. 
Mann was then but a young lawyer, without any official position 
save that of " school-committee man." I remember well when he 
was first elected to the Legislature. About that time, the Tremont 
House was opened, and was the wonder of the people ; and it was 



344 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

among tlie small-talk of our neighborhood, including several young 
ladles, that Horace Mann boarded there. My vivid recollection of 
this illustrates the adage, " Little pitchers have great ears." I 
think it was after I was a few years older that he astonished and 
captivated me by a most eloquent (volunteer) defence of a prisoner 
in court charged with theft. These words ring in my ears while I 
wi'ite: " I consider it as much my duty to defend this man as it 
would be to reach out my arm to a man floating down a stream and 
in danger of drowning." The prisoner was acquitted; the jury not 
even leaving then- seats. Even the unrelenting prosecuting attor- 
ney confessed to the effect of Mr. Mann's ai'gument. 

Pardon me ; but it is a delight to me thus to dwell on the recol- 
lections of my boyhood, and of so great and good a man. 

Very respectfully, 

GEO. E. BAKER. 

Washington, Dec. 14, 1850. 

Geo. B. Baker, Esq., Member ofAssemhly, Albany, N.Y. 

Dear Sir, — I remember you well as one of the littlest boys on 
one of the lowest scats in the old sehoolhouse at " Connecticut 
Corner," in Dedham. 

I have a vivid recollection of how my heart used to exult in hope 
as I saw the " httle fellows " in jacket and trousers, out of whom 
my imagination used to make good and true men for the country 
and the world. And if you can conceive how it must delight me 
to have those visions realized in a single case, then you may com- 
pute the pleasure which I enjoy in the receipt of many, many such 
remembrances as yours. Your father* was one of my best friends, 
and I have great respect for his memory. I am glad you are to go 
among the men who make laws, and, what is more efficacious than 
laws, public opinion, for the community. Nor am I less delighted 
to hear, that, in your political convictions, you are attracted towards 
]Mr. Seward. I say attracted towards Mr. Seward ; for I do not 
quite agree with him on some views which I consider ultra : and 
yet, in the main, he holds sound doctrines, and certainly supports 
them with ability. 

* John Baker, Sheriff of Norfolk County. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 345 

As to your course of action, allow me to express the hope that 
you will connect yourself with educational, charitable, and philan- 
thropic spheres of action, rather than with party combinations and 
schemes. As soon as it is understood in what direction your taste 
and predilections lead you, you will find yourself placed in those 
positions, or falling into them naturally, and as if by gravitation. 
»: Two years ago, I revised the whole system of Massachusetts 
common schools; and if you have any desire to see my work, and 
will address our Secretary of State, asking for a copy of my revised 
Tenth Report, I doubt not he will send it to you. 

May I suggest to you to purchase and read and study two 
volumes, just published, of Charles Sumner's orations? You will find 
them fall of the most noble views and inspuing sentiments. I could 
wish a young man, just entering political life, to do nothing better 
than to form his conduct after the high models there presented. 

Excuse the haste of this letter, written, as most of my correspond- 
ence is, in the midst of constant interruptions ; and believe me very 

truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 



Washington, Jan. 5, 1851. 
To E. W. Clap, Walpole, Mass. 

My dear Sir, — ... After a week of factious opposition, we 
have at last, this morning, passed a vote, by a large majority, to 
do the handsome thing to Kossuth. The South and the " Old 
Hunkers " have been in a " tight place." How could they vote to 
honor one fugitive from slaveiy, and chain and send back another? 
If an Austrian "commissioner" should issue his warrant for Kos- 
suth, and he should kill the marshal, would he, like the Christiana 
rioters, be guilty of treason ? 

You see my book"* has been prosecuted, in the name of the 
publishers, for libel. If the greater the truth, the greater the libel, 
the book must plead guilty. Regards to you all. 
As ever, very truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 



* " Of Antislavery Documents and Speeches," which is to be republished' 
with some additional matter. 



346 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Washington, Jan. 6, 1851. 

My dear Mr. C ombe, — ... I have nothing to write on polit- 
ical subjects that can afford any gratification to a humanity-loving 
man. In 1848, there was a great inflowing of the sentiment of li- 
berty, both in Europe and in this country. You have already ex- 
perienced the ebbing of that tide in Europe, and it has receded as 
much relatively in this hemisphere as in yours. Notwithstanding 
the inherent and radical wickedness of some of the compromise 
measures, as they were called, yet the most strenuous efforts are 
making by the Administration to force the Whig party to their adop- 
tion and support. It is a concerted movement between those who 
are ready to saciifice liberty for office and those who are ready to 
make the same sacrifice for money. From the day of Mr. Web- 
ster's open treachery and apostasy (if indeed he had political virtue 
enough to be an apostate), he has been urging the idea upon New- 
England Whigs, that, if they could give up freedom, they might have 
a tariff. This has wi'ought numberless conversions among those 
who think it a sin not to be rich. They say in their hearts, " The 
South wants cotton to sell, and must have negroes to produce it ; 
we want cotton to manufacture, and so we must have negroes to 
raise it : slavery is equally indispensable to us both." So both are 
combining to uphold it. Before Texas was annexed, the whole 
Democratic party at the North denounced it. As soon as that was 
done, they wheeled round like a company of well-drilled soldiers at 
the word of command, and supported it. I fear the great body of 
the Whig party will do no better as regards these infamous prosla- 
very measures. Party allegiance here has very much the effect of 
loyalty with you. It has the power to change the nature of right 
and wrong. I profess to belong to none of the parties. I have 
given in my adherence to certain great principles ; and by them 
I stand, not only in independence, but in defiance of parties. I 
should like to send you a copy of my letters. I will do so as soon 
as I can find an oj^portunity. . . . 

Washington, Feb. 10, 1851. 
E. W. Clap, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — ... I was glad to hear from you, and should 

be much obliged for a more detailed account of proceedings at 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 347 

home. Things are looking bad for freedom there, and worse here. 

There never was a greater effort on the part of any Administration 

— not even in the most imperious days of Jackson or Polk — to 

subdue all opposition, by fears or by rewards, than at present. 

Webster is as corrupt a politician as ever lived. 

What is the chance of Sumner's success ? . . . 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



Washington, Feb. 14, 1851. 

My dear Sumner, — Remember it is the darkest time just 

before day. I have long had very serious apprehensions about the 

result this session ; that is, the end of the beginning : but you 

must now apply to yourself the counsel you gave last autumn to 

me ; that is, you must now take the field, and vindicate your cause 

before the people; not yourself, — that I do not say, — but the 

CAUSE. If you do not prevail now, Massachusetts goes over to 

Hunkerdom. This may the gods avert ! . . . 

Yours ever, 

HORACE MANN. 



New York, March 1, 1S51. 

I had a call this morning from a man who wishes to get a grant 
from Government, and so he is civil to me. It gave me just the 
feehng I used to have at the selfish civilities of many Boston men, 
when I was in our Legislature, who used to coax and pet and 
flatter me, and tell me what fine speeches I made, and make me 
dine, and force me to diink their wine (for I had not then the full 
grace of a teetotaler) ; but as soon as I left that presidency, and 
became an educationist, they knew me no longer. 

The ice on the Susquehanna seemed perfectly strong, and I was 
not afraid to go where I saw the baggage-cars go. I wished you 
could have been clairvoyant enough to see me when I stepped on 
the hither shore ; but we suffer in this life for our short-sightedness. 

Syracuse. — I trust you will now be at ease about me ; for here I 
am in Mr. May's home, and I am to remain here until Monday. 



348 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

He came to the hotel yesterday morning, and, like a true Hopkin- 
sian theologian, made his free gi-ace irresistible, and took me up 
here. He has a beautiful place, — as beautiful as ours : so I feel 
quite restored to old comforts again. 

We had about ten speeches, and at least six of them were very 
brilliant. There was an air of boldness, of defiance even, against 
the crime, and its abettors and promoters, which augurs well for the 
cause. 

Neal Dow, the moral Columbus, was there, — a small, innocent- 
looking, modest man of middle age, who looks as though he must 
have felt infinitely surprised, when, as Byron says, he waked up 
one morning, and found himself famous. 

A mighty audience last night, I was told, — not less than five thou- 
sand people. I had only a music-stand to put my lecture upon, and 
was obhged to stand one side of it, — a rascally arrangement ! Had 
I not had your plain handwriting, I could not have got along at all : 
so I thought of you continually, as you helped every sentence out 
of my mouth. I think of that cough of Greorge's. Do I hear it ? 
or is it imagination ? 

The temperance camp is all astir. I have just been invited to 
deliver another temperance lecture before I leave the city. 

Dear H. and Gr., — did I hear my httle boys speaking last night 
with singing voices like birds, and showing glad eyes and smiling 
faces ? or was it a dream ? 

Washington, April, 1851. 

My dear Sumner, — Laus Deo ! Good, better, best, better yet ! 

By the necessity of the case, you are now to be a politician, — an 

honest one. Scores have asked whether you would be true. I 

have underwritten to the amount of forty reputations. 

Yours tnily, 

HORACE MANN.* 

* This note was written on occasion of Mr. Sumner's election to the Senate. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 349 

LETTER TO THE YOUNG MEn'S DEBATING SOCIETY, lU BOWERY, NEW 
YORK, IN REPLY TO A COMMUNICATION ASKING HIS ADVICE IN 
RELATION TO THE BEST MANNER OF DEBATING. 

West Newton, Monday, June 16, 1851. 

I am very glad to be made acquainted with tlie esistence of your 
society, and feel highly honored by your request for a word of en- 
couragement and counsel. 

I have an inexpressible interest in young men, and wish I could 
live my life over again, that I might cause less of evil and more of 
good than I have done. But life is a book of which we can have 
but one edition : as it is first prepared, it must stand forever. Let 
each day's action, as it adds another page to the indestructible 
volume, be such that we shall be willing to have an assembled 
world read it ! 

You say you constitute a debating society. Will you allow me, 
as a friend, to make one remark on the subject of the choice of sub- 
jects, and another upon your habit of treating them ? 

I would recommend that you choose topics for discussion which 
are, as far as possible, both theoretic and practical. The theoretic 
will exercise your speculative faculties, which are essential to com- 
prehensiveness, forethought, and invention ; and the practical will 
cause you to keep continually in view the uses which may be made 
of your combination of ideas. Both powers will make the man, so 
far as the intellect is concerned. 

My other remark is, — and I am sure you will think more and 
more of it the longer you live, — never investigate nor debate for 
triumph, but always for truth. Never take the affirmative or nega- 
tive side of a question till after you have mastered it according to 
the best of your ability, and then adopt the side which judgment 
and conscience assure you to be right. 

The mind is not only the object to be improved, but it is the 
instrument to work with. How can you improve a moral instrument 
by forcing it to hide or obscure the truth, and espouse the side of 
falsehood ? If you succeed, you do but injure others by inducing 
them to adopt errors ; but you injure yourself more than any one 
else. The optician who beclouds the glass through which he looks 



350 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

is a wise man compared with the reasoner who beclouds his faculties. 

Keep one thing forever in view, — the truth ; and if you do this, 

though it may seem to lead you away from the opinions of men, it 

will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God. 

With sincere hopes for your welfare, I am, dear sir, very truly 

yours, &c., 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, July 13, 1851. 

... A Virginian told me yesterday that he saw I kept preaching; 
and, upon my evincing some curiosity to know what he meant, he 
said he heard a discourse from me the day before, — Sunday ; all 
which, being at last interpreted, meant that he had heard a street 
temperance-lecturer read my Letter to the Worcester Temperance 
Convention, to a large audience which he had collected. I see the 
letter itself is in Monday's " Commonwealth." . . . 

I was glad to see in some paper yesterday a letter from Gen. 
Scott to Gen. Jackson, declinino; a challeno;e for a duel which the 
latter had sent him. It was well written, saying at the end that 
he. Gen. Jackson, could probably gratify his feelings by calling him, 
Scott, coward, &c., till after the next war; meaning thereby, 
that, in another war, he would have an opportunity to vindicate his 
courage, &c. 

The general impression here is that Mr. Webster cares nothing 
for the Whig party, but will accept a nomination from any body of 
men not too contemptible to be noticed. 

West Newton, Aug. 4, 1851. 

Rev. S. J. May, — ... Webster has debauched the country, not 

only on the subject of slavery, but of all decency and truth. Well, 

I have no doubt who will come out right ten years hence. 

Very truly yours, &c., 

H. MANN. 

West Newton, Sept. 25, 1851. 
Rev. T. Parker. 

My DEAR Sir, — ... I wish to find a few of the best authorities, 
taken from as wide a range as possible among heathen and pagan 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 351 

writers, in favor of the higber law. Can you refer me to them ? 

I wish to shame-our Christians by a little pagan morality. . . . 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, December, 1851. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — ... In this political wrangle, I, who 
before was, in some respects, veiy popular, have become very un- 
popular. But I look to futurity for my vindication. During the 
past summer and autumn, I have collected and revised all my lead- 
ing speeches and letters on antislavery, and have pubhshed them in 
a volume, making nearly six hundred pages. They will be, in a 
good degree, historical as to my course on the great questions of 
freedom and slavery. For a time, I, and those with whom I have 
acted, may be under a cloud ; but I have no doubt as to how we 
shall stand a quarter of a century hence. And hereafter, when 
some future Macaulay shall arise to announce the verdict of history 
in relation to these times, I can feel no doubt that he will condemn 
the statesmen and the judges who have upheld the infamous com- 
promise measures and the Fugitive-slave Law, to stand forever by 
the side of, and to share the immortal reprobation which now, by the 
universal consent of mankind, is awarded to, the lawgivers and the 
courts of the Stuarts. 

I came to Washington last Saturday, bringing the whole family, 
and a niece who is very dear to me, and who proposes spending the 
winter here. We are situated in a most pleasant part of the city, 
on Capitol Hill ; and hope to have as agreeable a winter as one can 
have in the midst of these national immoralities. The business of 
the session will consist mainly in the manoeuvres, intrigues, and 
competitions for the next Presidency. The only candidate yet 
named, whom I can support, is Gen. Scott. He will not mingle in 
the intrigue. I shall be a spectator of these questions, having no 
temptation even to participate in them. 

I am exhibiting myself in a new character, — that of a school-book 
maker ; and am preparing, in conjunction with a gentleman who is 
very competent to perform the labor, a series of arithmetical works 



352 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

based on a new principle. Instead of taking, as the data of the 

questions, the transactions of the shop, the market-house, the bank, 

&c., I explore the whole range of history, biography, geography, 

civil, commercial, financial, and educational statistics, science, &c., 

for the materials which form the basis of the questions : so that 

the pupil, in addition to a problem to be solved, shall always find 

an interesting or instructive fact to be delighted with. I can, 

however, give you but a meagre idea of my plan, which I have fully 

unfolded in my preface, and which I hope some time to send to 

you.* 

I ask myself a thousand times, Shall I ever see you again ? and 

the answer which probability returns makes me sad. With our best 

regards to yourself and Mrs. Combe, we are, as ever, most truly 

your friends. 

HORACE MANN. 

P. S. — There is something in your suggestion of having me for 
your posthumous editor that struck me as ahnost ridiculous. Your 
chance for being the survivor is probably better than mine. But 
that is no reason why your work should not proceed. Put all your 
wisdom into it. 

Washington, Dec. 5, 1851. 

My dear Feiends Mr. and Mrs. Combe, — ... Politics in this 
country do not, as they should, mean a science, but a controver- 
sy ; and in this sense we are all involved in politics. When will 
the time come that poUties can be taken from the domain of pas- 
sion and propensity ? I have no doubt that such a millennium is in 
the future. Nor will the whole world enter that millennium at the 
same time. Wise and sage individuals like Mr. George Combe 
must be the pioneers : then it must be colonized by a larger number, 
and then entered and dwelt in by all. But I fear the epochs and 
eras which will mark and measure these successive stages of con- 
summations are to be geological in their distance and duration. 
Doubtless you have seen a book entitled the " Theory of Human 

* This arithmetic was published in Philadelphia : but the publishers made little 
effort to forward it; and Mr. Mann was too much occupied, when he became aware 
of this, to take any measures upon the subject. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 353 

Progression," which, from internal evidence, is Scotch in its origin, 
and whose object is not only to prophesy, but to prove, the future 
triumph of peace and justice upon earth. I have read but part of 
the book. I am reading it to my wife at odd hours, when our 
chances of leisure come together. I have long believed in the 
whole doctrine ; but it is delightful to see it argued out, not 
only to take the Q. E. D. on authority, but to feel the truth of 
the solution. All sciences, even the natural ones, have been the 
subjects of controversy and of persecution in their beginning : 
why, then, should not the science of polities? One truth after 
another will be slowly developed ; and by and by truth, and not 
individual aggrandizement or advantage, will be the only legitimate 
object of inquiry. Then will its millennium come ! — Doubtless 
you have through the public papers the political movements of the 
country at large. The old struggle for supremacy between the polit- 
ical parties goes on ; but worse means are brought in to insure sue 
cess than ever before entered into our contests. The North (or free 
States) comprises almost two-thirds of all our population ; the 
South (or slave States) but about a third. The North is really 
divided into two great parties, Whigs and Democrats. These are 
arrayed against each other in hostile attitude ; and, being nearly 
equal, they cancel each other. The South is Whig or Democratic 
only nominally. It is for slaveiy exclusively and intensely. Hence 
we now present the astonishing and revolting spectacle of a free 
people in the nineteenth century, of almost twofold power, not 
merely sun-endering to a proslavery people one-half the power, but 
entering into the most vehement competition to join with them in 
trampling upon all the great principles of freedom. We have five 
prominent candidates for the next Presidency. All of them are 
from the North. The South does not put forward as yet a single 
man ; for Mr. Clay can hardly be considered a candidate. Each 
one of the five candidates begins with abandoning every great 
principle of constitutional liberty, so far as the black race is con- 
cerned ; and to this each one has saddled more and more prosla- 
very gratuities and aggrandizements, as the propositions he advanced 
were made at a later period of time. All Whigs professed to be 
shocked when Gen. Cass ofiered in substance to open all our new 



354 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Territories to slaveiy. But 3Ir. Webster's accumulated proslavery 
bounties, as compared with those of Gren. Cass, were as " Pelion to 
a wart." Mr. Buchanan offers to run the line of 36° 30' through 
to the Pacific Ocean, and to surrender all on the south side of it to 
slavery. Mr. Dallas, late Vice-President under Mr. Polk, tells the 
South that the antislavery spu-it of the North will never be quiet 
under the compromise measures and the Fugitive-slave Law ; and 
so proposes to embody this whole series into the Constitution by 
an amendment, thus putting them beyond the reach of legislative 
action. And Mr. Douglas, a young senator from Illinois, who 
aspires to the White House, offers Cuba to the South in addition 
to all the rest. In the mean time, the South sets forth no candidate 
for the Executive chau-. Some of their leading politicians avow 
the policy of taking a Northern man, because " a Northern man 
with Southern principles ' ' can do more for them than any one of 
their own. All of them are virtually saying to Nortliern aspirants, 
"Proceed, gentlemen; give us your best terms: and, when you 
have submitted your proposals, we will make our election between 
you." Is it not indescribably painful to contemplate such a 
picture, — no, such a reality ? You must feel it as a man : / feel it 
as an American, — you as a lover of mankind, I as a lover of re- 
publican institutions. 

You will, of course, understand that such contests cannot be car- 
ried on without corresponding contests in the States. In Slassachu- 
setts, many collateral issues have mingled with the main question. 
Mr. Webster's apostasy on the 7th of March, 1850, had not at first 
a single open defender in our Commonwealth. Some pecuniary 
arrangements were made by which one or two papers soon devoted 
themselves to his cause. In a few days after the speech, he visited 
Boston; and, at a public meeting to receive him, he held out, in un- 
mistakable language, the lure of a tariff, if they would abandon 
principle. This interested motive appealed to both parties. It was 
pressed upon them, both in public and in private, during the whole 
summer, and indeed until the approaching termination of the 31st 
Congress showed that it was only a delusion and a cheat. 

During the summer, another pecuniary element was introduced. 
The merchants of New York sought a monopoly of Southern trade 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 355 

througli a subserviency to Southern interests. The merchants of 
Philadelphia and Boston forthwith became competitors for the same 
profits through the same infamous means. In this way, within a 
twelvemonth, all the Atlantic cities were carried over to the side 
of Southern policy. I believe I told you of efforts made against 
myself, and their result, in the last year's election of a representative 
to Congress from my district. Since that time the process of defection 
has gone rapidly on, spreading outwards from the city, and contami- 
nating the country. The great body of the Whig merchants and 
manufacturers in the Northern States now advocate Mr. Webster for 
the Presidency. This, of course, determines the character of the 
mercantile papers. A large meeting was held in Boston last week 
to nominate him for that office. He is expected soon to resign his 
secretaryship, and to travel South on an electioneering tour. His 
health is Tery much impaired ; and that glorious physique, which 
should be in full vigor at the age of eighty, is now nearly broken 
down. He can do nothing but under the inspiration of brandy; 
and the tide of excitement also must be taken " at the flood ; " for 
if a little too early, or a little too late, he is sure to fail. 

In Massachusetts we have had a fierce contest for State oflSces. 
Mr. Winthrop was the Whig candidate for Governor ; and his elec- 
tion would have been claimed as a Webster triumph, though not 
justly so. But he falls short of an election by about eight thousand 
votes. The Free-soilers and Democrats combined, and have ob- 
tained a majority in both the Senate and the House. This secures 
an anti-Whig Governor, and is a triumph of antislavery sentiment. 
We have never had a more fiercely contested election. I was " on 
the stump," as we say, about three weeks, speaking from two to two 
rand a half hours almost every evening. Since the election, I have 
been delivering lyceum lectures ; so that you may well suppose I 
am pretty much " used up." With this term in Congress, I hope 
to escape from political broils, and to live a life more in accordance 

■with both natural and acquired tastes. . . . 

H. M. 



356 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Washington, Jan. 3, 1852. 
Rev. S. J. May. 

Dear Sir, — It is now a long time since I have received any 

copies of your shots at Mr. C . So I suppose the war is ended. 

I did not see his articles ; but, from yours, I should suppose you had 
much the better of him, both in temper and logic. It is curious 
that you should propose to engage my professional services for your 
defence in a case arising ovit of the Fugitive-slave Law, and that so 
soon my own writings on the subject should require legal defence. I 
presume you have seen in the " Commonwealth " that Mr. Commis- 
sioner Curtis has commenced an action for libel against Mr. Muzzey, 
the publisher of my speeches, on account of that Lancaster exhibi- 
tion of himself. What do you say now to being my counsel ? Are 
you ready to do as you would be done by ? 

... I hope you see full debates of Congress — such as are pub- 
lished in the " Globe " — in relation to the reception of Kossuth. 
The whole opposition to him comes from the South, and from 
Northern Hunkers who are devoted to the South. The avowed op- 
position is based on the question of "intervention;" but the real 
motive is slavery. While they demand that one fugitive shall be 
fettered and sent home, they cannot bear to see another feted and 
honored. You see the cloven foot ; indeed, you can see nothing 
else. With best regards for your family, I am 

Very truly yours, &c. , 

HORACE MANN. 



Washington, Feb. 10, 1852. 

My dear Downer, — There is nothing of much moment transpir- 
ing here. Cabell of Florida, in the House, a few days ago laid down 
the Southern Whig platform, that no man should be supported for 
President who was not sound on the slavery question ; and added, 
that though Scott, for every other reason, would be his first choice, 
yet he had not come out in favor of slavery to this time, and he feared 
it was even now too late. He was determined (Cabell) never to 
be caught by another Taylor. Murphy, from Georgia, followed on 
the Democratic side, and prescribed very much the same creed for 
the Democrats that Cabell had for the Whigs. So you see the bold 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 357 

stand the South is taking. They will talk up to it now. Next 
June, they will act up to it. Will not both parties at the North 
succumb ? 

Dismy of Ohio, in the same debate, on being taunted for voting 
against the Fugitive-slave Law, said he did it because it was not 
stringent enough ! 

Dansville, N. Y., 1852. 

I have seen only the most meagre account of D 's and 

II 's speeches. I do not see how D can come out without 

being battered and shattered to pieces. Nor ought he to. I think 
he has been false to great principles, though with such palliations as 
apostates always find. I think posterity does not look at crimes as 
the traitors themselves do. With the latter it may not be unmiti- 
gated and untempted crime. They have their excuses, their sub- 
terfuges, and their casuistry. Gorgey doubtless disguised his treason 
to himself under some plea of benefit to his nation. It is a known 
fact, that Arnold stoutly contended that he desired to confer a be- 
nefit on his country as the motive of his treachery. Judas proba- 
bly made himself believe that the interests of religion demanded the 
surrender of his Master. Even Mr. Webster talks to this day as if, 
in sacrificing the immortal principles of liberty, he had only the 
good of the Union in view. But when the occasion has passed by, 
when the event is far removed into the past, then the palliations and 
the pretexts are lost sight of; and only the black, fatal, damning guilt 
remains for the detestation and abhorrence of men. 



Washington, D.C, Feb. 13, 1852, 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — We heard from you authentically through our 
common friends, from whom we had a very pleasant visit ; but direct- 
ly we have not heard from you at all. We should be pleased to 
be remembered in your thoughts, and now and then to have an 
hour of your time ; but the claims of old friendship perhaps belong 
to that class of imperfect obligations which cannot be enforced 
against the will of the party. Let me assure you, however, that 



358 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

you have no truer friends, no warmer admirers, than Mrs. M 

and R , to say nothing of the gentleman who first knew you 

when your fame was insular, and who adhered to you through all 
seasons and at all times, until it became continental, ay, co-exten- 
sive with civilization. . . . 

To say that the political aspect of things here is not the worst 
possible, is about all the praise you can give it. A politician does 
not sneeze without reference to the next Presidency. All things 
are carried to that tribunal for decision. The greatest interests and 
the worst passions are assayed for this end, and their value deter- 
mined accordingly. The next canvass will doubtless be the most 
corrupt and con-upting one ever witnessed in this country. It is 
the general opinion here that there is but one Whig who can by any 
possibility be elected, — Gren. Scott. The Democrats will triumph 
over every one else, whoever their candidate may be, — perhaps 
over him, should he be nominated. I believe Glen. Scott to be a 
very honorable, high-minded man, — a man of rare talents and at- 
tainments. On the other hand, I believe the man whom the people 
universally call " Old Sam Houston," alias " Old San Jacinto," 
to be a man of incomparably more character, honesty, and resolu- 
tion than any other of the Democratic candidates. 

Unwell as I am here, — for we made a very respectable hospital 
here for the last twelve weeks, — I am going to try a little rustica- 
tion at the North. 

I hope to attend- the great Temperance Banquet at New York on 
Wednesday evening next. I am also engaged to deliver a temper- 
ance lecture in the same city on Tuesday evening. Indeed, I am 
to speak four successive evenings, from Tuesday to Friday inclusive; 
hoping by that means to improve my digestion. After that, I have 
some idea of going up to see brother May at Syracuse, and congrat- 
ulate him for the hundredth time that he was not hung in Massa- 
chusetts with that dreadful malefactor who included three capital 
crimes in one act. I think I have told you that story, and have 
seen you laugh at the predicament in which your brother May 
might have been placed. It is sometimes veiy strange how serious 
people will laugh at serious things. I wish you could meet me at 
New York or Syracuse, or elsewhere on the way, and let me look 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 359 

again upon that good old horologue whose machinery keeps such 
excellent time, however much the case may have been battered. 

You must see Kossuth, at any expense of ribs or toes; for he will 
warm your heart. Many of his admh-ers think him perfect. His 
enemies will probably succeed in finding foibles enough in his char- 
acter to prove him human. 

Your sincere .fiiend, 

HOEACE MANN. 



Blooming Grove, N.Y., Feb. 22, 1852. 

. . . This is a mere rural region ; but they have had a course of 
lectures this winter, and the audience is gathered from all the sur- 
rounding country. How came the people, you will ask, to be of this 
inquisitive and intelligence-loving character ? 

Their former minister, Mr. Arbuckle, was a strong-minded and 
honest man, whose mind, by its natural operation, reasoned out 
some points of dissent from the Presbyterian creed : whereupon his 
brethren arraigned and excommunicated him. This disengaged his 
mind from their creed ; and he went on growing into truth, — the 
people of his congregation for the most part adhering to him. 
After Mr. Arbuckle left them, some natural affinity led them in 
their search to find their present man, Mr. Austin Craig. He is 
now about twenty-eight years of age, and a most extraordinary 
young man. He was led to invite me here by seeing my " Thoughts 
for a Young Man." He devotes himself very much to the young. 
He is vei-y earnest and sincere ; has a fine cerebral development, 
though small in the lungs. His introductory remarks this morning, 
and also his sermon, were exceedingly beautiful in spirit and in 
manner, all based on phrenology, and full of most delightful reli- 
gious spirit. His people are sensible enough to have but one ser- 
vice a day : so we have spent the afternoon together, in company, 
too, with a college-educated farmer ; and I find them full of a love 
of truth, entirely emancipated from old theological dogmas, and 
sympathizing hereby with all progress. Aside from Howe and 
Downer, I hardly know another such a lover of the true, and yet so 
young. He wi'ote to me a long time ago for liberty to pubhsh an 



360 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

edition of my " Thoughts for a Young Man," for gratuitous distri- 
bution. 

I was put into a chamber last night with no sign of a fireplace ; 
air like the inside of a cavern made in a snow-drift ; and, as if that 
were not enough, the three doors of the room — one of which leads 
into the entry — were cut off at the top, so as to leave an opening 
five or six inches all round the house. Then I had a feather-bed 
and a comforter, and it was a dismal prospect ; but I put a shawl 
round my head, leaving only a spu'acle, or breathing-place, and 
really had a very good night's sleep, and came out this morning 
free from a cold. All this makes me want to get home again. It 
is some compensation, however, to find such a man and such a 
people. It shows what the people would be if Orthodoxy would let 
them alone. I wish I were clairvoyant enough to see how you all 
are, but must submit to the conditions of my nature. Perhaps the 
time will come when this will cease to be one of its conditions. 

Washington, March 27, 1852. 
C. Pierce, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — ... I found I was doing no good here, and that it 
seemed impossible for me to effect any; and therefore I took a short 
excursion into the State of New York, in hopes to redeem a little of 
my time from worthlessness by preaching the gospel of temperance 
and education. I spoke on these themes to willing or unwilling ears 
for about twenty-five successive nights, and returned in better health. 

I find people in the western part of the State of New York more 
alive to the importance of thorough female education than we are in 
Massachusetts. They are seeking to reach the true point, however, 
not by public and free institutions for all, but by private institutions 
for those who can afford it. I spoke on this point to some social 
parties, not in the way of a lecture, but of a private conversation, 
with liberty of catechism. At Rochester, a meeting was held for 
the establishment of a female college whose curriculum of studies 
should be equal to that of other colleges ; and some very sensible 
and energetic women are engaged in the enterprise. At Lima, 
about twenty miles from Ptochester, they have a college for both 
sexes ; and I was invited and present at two or three social parties 



LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN. 361 

wliere the young lady-students composed a part of the company. 
They have here a preparatory school of some six hundred or seven 
hundred pupils, whom I addressed. At M'Grrawville, a little farther 
in the interior, is another college, whose doors are open not only for 
both sexes, but avowedly for all colors. Another college, already 
largely endowed,* is about to be opened at Yellow Springs, Ohio. 
Sixty thousand dollars are to be expended the ensuing summer for 
buildings. This is established with especial reference to the educar 
tion of females. (Confidentially, what should you think of your 
humble servant's complying with a request to preside over this ?) 
I think the young ladies of the West are stronger, larger, and better 
developed in every way, than those in Boston and its vicinity. A 
few miles out of Rochester, I attended an examination of a boarding- 
school, kept by Mrs. Brewster, formerly Miss Bloss, the historian ; 
and I think I never saw twenty young ladies together to be com- 
pared to that number in her first class. There was not an ordinary- 
looking person among them ; and twenty such foreheads I never 
beheld before " all in a row." I saw a great many intelligent and 
earnest people. Doubtless the character of my mission selected 
this class from among the masses as a magnet will pick out steel 
filings from sand, and brought them around me ; but their existence 
and their affinities were the main thing to rejoice at. I advocated 
the Maine Law with the zeal of one crying in the wilderness. 

I felt very deeply indebted to you for the pains you took to set 
me right in the matter of the Normal schoolhouse and premises. I 

was so much disturbed by the apparent course of , that I wrote 

him a letter of inquiry, putting the thing in a not unfriendly and 
uncomplaining manner, and making no reference to any sources of 
information. Pie replied at some length, solemnly declaring that 
he had never given any impression that the property belonged to 
the school, the Board, or the State ; but, on the other hand, had 
showed Mr. Quincy's letter to all the people of West Newton and 
elsewhere who had any interest in knowing the facts. What think 
you of this ? If his letter were by me, I would send it to you, that 
you might know how broad his denials are. It is enough to say 
they are as broad as language can make them. 

* Mr. Mann proved to be mistaken about the endowment of this college. — Ed. 



362 LIFE OF HORACE MANIT. 

As to politics, I do not know as there is any thing here that you 
do not know as well as we do. Congress does little else but 
intrigue for the respective candidates. The partisans are now so 
zealously at work for their respective favorites, that they have little 
time for assaiHng their opponents. As soon, however, as the nomi- 
nations are made, the battle will be set in array, and the batteries 
will be played with Napoleon-like energy. I did not go to the 
North at all on a pohtieal mission ; but still, where there was so 
much said, I could not but hear some of it. The hostiHty to Mr. 
Fillmore, thi'oughout the northern and western parts of New York, 
is very intense. It is not merely an opposition of principle for his 
abandonment of all the great doctrines of freedom, but it is personal. 
The objections to Mr. Webster, so far as principle is concerned, 
are very much the same as those urged against Mr. Fillmore. 
As to the candidates of the other party, all you can say is, that 
one is as bad as possible, and the other a good deal worse. Any 
idea of getting a man who is as he should be is out of the question. 
I fear the only resource left us will be to get rid of the worst. But 
here you will say I touch on the expediency doctrine, which I shall 
not now attempt to discuss. . . . 

M. sends very much love to you both. If R. were here, I know 
she would do the same ; for she has it in her heart. So has 

H. MANN. 

Washington, April 24, 1852. 
Db. Jarvis. 

Dear Sir, — I have just received your favor of the 19th instant, 

and the accompanying volumes ; for which I am greatly obliged to 

you. If, as Adam Smith said, a man who makes two blades of 

grass gi'ow where but one grew before be a "public benefactor," 

of what honor is he worthy who diffuses ideas regarding health and 

life among the people ? The doctrines of human physiology have 

come in just in season to save the race from destraction. Had their 

advent been delayed much longer, it is doubtful whether men would 

have been able to discover them at all. They might have gone, 

like our Western Indians, beyond the gravitating point. You havo 

done your part to save them. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 363 

PoKtieal parties here seem crystallizing about Fillmore and 
Scott. Our debates lately are mostly on the Presidential question ; 
but I don't think Mr. Webster's name has been mentioned for three 
weeks in reference to the matter. 

What are you doing at home ? From what I hear, the coalition 
is not making headway. If they are not, then I suppose Hunker 
Whiggery is. When Mr. Webster is dead, will Hunkerism die ? 
I hope so. 

You must see Kossuth. He has the best sort of greatness ; that 
is, goodness. . . . 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Washington, May 8, 1852. 

My dear Me. Combe, — We are on the verge of a Presidential 
election. Our political caldron is beginning to seethe vehemently. 
Macbeth's witches had nothing in theirs so baneful as that which 
gives character to ours. The pohtical leaders desired to make it 
palatable to the South ; and hence they have saturated its contents 
with proslavery. Even under the application of the three-fifths 
basis of the Constitution in regard to the slave-representation in 
Congress, we can give nearly two-thirds of the Presidential votes. 
Could we only unite for freedom as the South do for slavery, all 
would be well ; but the lower and hinder half of the brain rules, 
and we do not. The acquisition of our new territory from Mexico, 
by robbery under the form of a treaty, gave opportunity for compe- 
tition between our leaders for Southern support. . . . Mr. Fillmore, 
the present President, goes for what is called the " finality " of the 
compromises, and makes himself acceptable to the South by issuing 
proclamations, and giving instructions to marshals and prosecuting 
attorneys to enforce the Fugitive-slave Law. Mr. Webster tries to 
get some new popularity in the same quarter by lauding the same 
accursed law, and by maintaining that it is not only constitutional, 
but " proper " in itself. The only Whig candidate who is not fully 
committed on all these proslavery measures is Gen. Scott; and 
towards him, therefore, the antislavery part of the Whigs are looking 
as their only hope. Portions, indeed, of the antislavery men, — 



364 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

tlie abolitionists and no-government men, who vote nowhere ; the 
Liberty-party men, who will vote for no one who does not represent 
their views in full ; and the extreme men, perhaps, of the Free-soil 
party, — are as violent against Gen. Scott as against Gren. Cass. 
This repellency of bigots and pai-tisans seems to act on the law of 
the "inverse ratio of the squares of the distances;" for they are 
much more violent against those who almost agree with them than 
against those who are at the opposite moral pole. How the contest 
will eventuate, it is impossible to foresee. Should the Whigs 
indorse the " compromise measures " of 1850, or should they nomi- 
nate Mr. Fillmore or Mr. Webster, or should Gen. Cass, if nomi- 
nated, come out in favor of the " compromise measures," the 
Democrats will certainly prevail. There seems to be but one chance 
for the Whigs to succeed ; namely, the contingency of their nomi- 
nating Gen. Scott, and then of his non-indorsement of the "com- 
promises." Of course, the greater portion of the antislavery people 
are hoping for this result. 

Another great moral question is profoundly agitating the people 
of the Northern and Eastern States : it is the question of temper- 
ance. Between one and two years ago, such a concentration and 
pressure of influence was brought to bear upon the Legislature of the 
State of Maine, that though it is said that body was principally 
composed of anti-temperance men, yet it passed what has now 
become famous, and will forever be famous in the moral history of 
mankind, — the Maine Llquor Law. Its grand features are the 
search for and the seizure of all intoxicating liquors, and their de- 
struction when adjudicated to have been kept for sale. It goes upon 
the ground that the Government cannot knock a human passion or 
a depraved and diseased appetite upon the head, but it can knock a 
barrel of whiskey or rum upon the head, and thus prevent the grati- 
fication of the passion or appetite ; and after a time the unfed appe- 
tite or passion will die out. The author of this law was Neal Dow, 
the mayor of the city of Portland. He enforced it, and it has 
worked wonders. The alms-house ceased to be replenished with 
inmates ; assaults and batteiies became rare ; the jail-doors stood 
open ; and the police officers held almost sinecures. The success 
was so great, that the temperance party in other States have made 



LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN, 365 

it an element in popular elections ; and though in most instances 
they have been defeated at the first trial, yet they are resolved to 
return again to the contest. The Legislature of the Territory of 
Minnesota passed the law, but pi-ovided that it should be submitted 
to the people for ratification ; and it has been ratified by a popular 
vote ! And, what is still more important, the Legislature of 
Massachusetts, now in session, has this very week, after one of the 
most earnest and protracted contests ever waged, passed a similar 
law. It is to be submitted to the people next month. If a majority 
vote for it, it is forthwith to become the law of the State. If a 
majority vote against it, then it is to be suspended in its operation, 
and we will agitate anew. But this, perhaps you will say, is an 
heroic remedy for the evils of intemperance. I acknowledge it. 
But, when a disease becomes so desperate, I go for heroic remedies. 
I would resort to surgical practice, and lose a limb to save a life, or 
deplete the whole body to reduce a topical inflammation that 
threatens to be fatal. Wlien I saw you, I believe I used occasion- 
ally to take a very little wine ; and I sometimes, though rarely, 
drank tea. I believe I had left off" coffee long before. But, for 
many years past, I have abjured wine, coffee, tea, and every thing 
of a stimulating nature. I confine my beverage to the " pure 
element," and am a great deal better in health for the practice. 
■ My whole family has been in Washington since the commence- 
ment of the session. . . . How I wish you could come here and see 
them ! for then one of the greatest desires of my life would be 
answered ; that is, I should see you. 

How goes on the work of educating in your island ? I had a 
printed account of an examination in your school ; but how is it for 
the million ? . . . 

Your friend and disciple, HORACE MANN. 



Washington, May 13, 1852. 
Rev. E. Fay. 

My dear Sir, — No event in my life has ever caused me more 
deep and solemn anxiety than the application to become a candidate 
for the presidency of your proposed college at Yellow Springs, 
Ohio. At first, the impression made upon my mind by your pro- 



366 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

posal was not deep ; and notHng but the habit wliicli I have always 
had, never to decide important questions until after the fullest 
dehberation, prevented me from declining it at once. But I must 
now confess, that, from the day when I first had the pleasure of 
meeting you at Lima, the importance and attractiveness of the work 
proposed have not ceased to gain strength in my mind. 

The two great ideas which win me toward your plan are, — 
Fu'st, That of redressing the long-inflicted wrongs of woman by 
giving her equal advantages of education — I do not say in all 
respects an identical education, but equal advantages of education 
— with men ; and, second, The idea of maintaining a non-sectarian 
college. 

I have always had the deepest aversion to sectarianism, and to 
all systems of proselytism among Christian sects. I would enlighten 
the human mind with all true knowledge and with science ; I 
would repress the growth of all evil propensities and desires ; and, 
in doing this work, I would take the gospel of Jesus Christ as my 
textrbook, and the life of Jesus Christ as my example. In this 
way, I would endeavor to train up children in the way they should 

go- 
As far as possible, I would prepare every human being for that 

most important of all duties, the determining of his religious belief 

for himself. It seems to me that a generation so trained would 

have an infinitely better chance of getting at the truth than the 

present generation -has had. I always look upon my own conclusions 

on questions of faith with a measure of distrust, lest I may have 

landed in possible error on one side, from the vigor of the spring 

which I gave to escape from what seemed certain error on the 

other. 

These, sir, are my general views, with which you have a right to 
be acquainted before making your relations with me any more 
special or intimate. 

Again : so strong, in order to that high degree of success at 
which I should aim, would be the necessity, not only of public and 
oflScial co-operation, but of private and personal cordiaUty also, on 
the part of the faculty with whom I should be associated, that I 
should ask the privilege of nominating two of its members, subject, 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 367 

of course, to any reasonable objection of any kind wliicb could be 
alleged against them. One of these would be a young gentleman, 
the other a young lady. You see, by this, that I should propose 
to introduce females into the corps of instructors. I do this, not 
only because I think they would make as good teachers as men, 
but because, when young ladies are assembled together for instruc- 
tion, I think they need maternal as well as paternal counsel and 
guidance. As they do not leave their sex behind them, they should 
find mothers as well as fathers at the institutions where they reside. 
The claims of sex and sentiment are not to be thrust aside for those 
of intellect. 

And one thing more. Recognizing the possibility of contingen- 
cies that cannot be foreseen, I think it would be best, should an 
appointment be tendered me, to accept of it at firet as only a pro 
tempore one ; that is, to organize the institution, to stamp certain 
great features upon it, and to give it its direction and momentum. 
In this the greatness of the work would consist. When plans are 
settled, when instrumentalities are arranged and put in operation, 
the acquned impetus supplies, to a great extent, the place of 
original vigor; the obstacles are overcome, and the direction becomes 
a habit instead of a foresight. It is the " marshalling of aifairs," 
as Lord Bacon expresses it, that demands the faculty of seeing 
results in initiatory processes, or effects in causes. In all this I 
should deem it no indignity to be held inferior, so far as natural 
capacity is concerned, to numerous or numberless others ; and the 
only advantage which could be claimed for me would be my life of 
experience on various and important theatres of action. It is the 
beautifal attributes of your enterprise that attract me toward it. 
Should I see these attributes organized, embodied, and in living 
operation, I might well claim the right to retire from its farther 
administration. 

The time at which we might look for such an event would be 
uncertain ; probably not less than two or three, nor more than five 
or six years. The graduation of the first class from the institu- 
tion at the end of fom* years would seem a natural period ; but this 
might be shortened or prolonged by intervening circumstances. 



368 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

The future would still be left ojDen to any sucli arrangement as 
its own circumstances should counsel. 

In the light of a mere worldly or pecuniary transaction, and as 
between parties, one of whom asks for wages, and the other prom- 
ises to pay them, your proposition in regard to a salary is by no 
means satisfactory. Were that the only or the chief consideration, 
I should only send you the briefest words of declining ; but it is 
very far from being so : and I assure you that your proposition 
looks now to my mind far more inviting than it did when you 
broached the subject, and spoke to me of a probable salary of 
$3,000. The moral side of the question has gone up more than 
the pecuniary has fallen down. 

I do not make any serious account of this difference. A little 
yielding on both sides, either directly or indirectly, might probably 
bring us upon common and acceptable ground. 

I have now touched upon the leading topics which occur to my 
mind as proper to be understood in this preliminary state of pro- 
ceedings. The above seem to me the only conditions on which I 
could comply with the request you have so flatteringly urged. 
Whether acceptable or not, your institution will always have my 
best wishes ; and you have the present tender of any unofficial ser- 
vices which at any time I may be able to render you. 
Very truly and sincerely yours, &c. , 

HORACE MANN. 

West Newton, May 31, 1852. 
Rev. E. Fay. 

My dear Sir, — I had no sooner arrived at West Newton 
than I was unexpectedly summoned back to Washington to attend 
to indispensable business. I have just reached home again, and 
found your letter of the 26th inst. 

I regret that I had not understood some features of your plan 
before, as it might have terminated negotiations at once. Please 
inform me if I am to understand that each " scholarship owner " is 
entitled to a vote in choosing the Faculty, and also in dismissing 
them. If so, I fear you will find it impracticable to obtain a comple- 
ment of suitable officers. Supposing you have twelve or eighteen 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 369 

hundred entitled to vote. On any sudden clamor against any officer, 
however unfounded, a sufficient number of these might be assem 
bled to eject him. Dissatisfied students might disaffect their patrons. 
Enmities are more active than friendships. Most people will go 
farther to gratify a grudge than to reward merit. The malcontents, 
therefore, might easily be assembled, while the contents would 
remain at home, and thus a man's fate be determined, and his rep- 
utation sacrificed, without any of the guaranties of innocence. I 
make these remarks without any suggestion or suspicion that your 
contributors are not as fan* and honorable as any body of men so 
constituted can be. Doubtless they are even pre-eminently fair and 
honorable. I do it also with the hope, not to say confidence, that ] 
myself, and those appointed to act with me, could get along as well 
as the average of men under such circumstances. My point refers 
.'to the very nature of such a relation. I think I could refer to 
several crises in all our New-England colleges, when all the offi- 
cers, or at least a majority of them, would have been swept away 
under such an organization. If not right in this understanding of 
your plan, please inform me ; and, if you can obviate the force 
of the above suggestions, I shall be happy to hear your arguments. 

Your remarks in relation to the appointment of those personal 
. friends of mine have much force in the abstract ; but they apply 
only partially. The young gentleman and lady to whom I referred 
: are a nephew and niece of mine, whose education and the formation 
of whose character I have watched over, and in a good degree 
directed, from their childhood. He has now been engaged in teach- 
ing for fifteen or eighteen years with unvaried success, and the 
lady for ten or twelve. She is now a teacher in one of our Normal 
schools. Both are of the very highest grade of character ; have large 
attainments, and the habits of industry which are a promise of con- 
tinued acquisition. He is a Baptist; she is a Unitarian. The 
religious life of both would be acceptable to all good men. 

I do not think of any " Orthodox" man at the West for the 
station you mention ; but I know one here who would, as I beUeve, 
be admirably quahfied for the department of mathematics, espe- 
cially applied mathematics. He was for many years a teacher in 
an academy, and has since been a practical engineer and machinist; 

24 



370 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

and, in the value of the instruction he would impart, has probably 
no superior in the country. 

May I have the pleasure of hearing from you soon ? 
Very truly yours, &c., 

HORACE MANN. 

Washlngton, June 24, 1852. 

E. W. Clap, Esq. 

My deak Sir, — I left home on Saturday, stopped over Sunday 
in New York, and came on on Monday. At Philadelphia I heard 
the news of the nomination ; and, when I arrived at Baltimore, the 
first men I saw were some of our Massachusetts Hunker delegates. 
Sadder-looking men away from a funeral I never saw. The Fill- 
more and Webster men composed a majority of the convention, and 
therefore had every thing their own way in the organization ; in 
the Committee on Credentials, by which they let in all their friends, 
and shut out all their enemies, without reference to the fairness oi 
unfairness of theu' election — just as the Democrats did Rantoul ; 
and also in the Committee on Eesolutions. 

But, when they came to the nomination, the antislavery and anti- 
compromise portion of the convention prevailed ; and, if they did 
not win a full triumph, their enemies suffered a terrible defeat. 
They withstood not only the Southern slavery phalanx, but all 
the influence of the Government, and all the mammon Hunkerism 

of State Street, Wall Street, and Walnut Street. . . . 

H. M. 

Washington, June 24, 1852. 

. . . When the Whig Convention nominated Scott, they killed off 
those who had been most clamorous for slavery, and therefore did a 
great work. Though not a triumph of antislavery sentiment, there- 
fore, it was a defeat of Hunkerism at the North, and of slavery 
domination at the South. It was the first antislavery stand in a 
National Convention that has ever been successful. So far it is 
matter for thanksgiving and hallelujah. But it adopted the pro- 
slavery platform. This was effected by the union of the slavery 
men of the South, and the Hunkers or Fillmore and Webster men 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 371 

of the North. These together made a large majority ; one hundred 
and forty-nine being a majority. All these men worked together 
in the organization for the Committee on Credentials and for the 
Platform Committee, and were, of course, successful. But, when 
they came to candidates, they split. Nothing could carry enough of 
the Webster men over to Fillmore, or enough of the Fillmore men 
over to Webster, to make a majority. A portion of each knew of 
the other, — what all sensible and unbiassed men knew, — - that 
the nomination of the other would be death to the party ; and they 

: would not defeat the party, even for the nomination of a favorite. 
Thus it was done, and thus it was not done. 

There is such an infinite difference between Scott and Pierce, 
that all true antislavery men must desire the success of the former. 
About ten or a dozen Whigs from the South, and about the same 
number of Fillmore men, went over for Scott. This is all that could 
be meant by the South's supporting Scott or abandoning the com- 

: promises. They have got them in form, but not much more. The 
reason why they say Scott adopts the Southern platform is, that he 
accepts the nomination of the party that adopts the platform; and, 
indeed, his telegraphic despatch to the convention was, that he ac- 
cepted the nomination with the platform. But as many interpreta- 
tions can be given to the platform as to the Thirty-nine Articles. 
And, besides, the Whig Platform, though disgraceful to human na- 

iture, is not so black by many hues as the Democratic. 

I read this morning the greater part of Kossuth's speech at the 
Tabernacle, New York. Is it not his greatest speech ? 

We are now taking the question, by yeas and nays, on the pas- 
sage of a biU to give a certain quantity of the public lands to the 

: old States for educational purposes ; and it looks as if it would go 
through the House. I hope so with all my organ of hope. 

Washington, June 29, 1852. 
Mr. Clay is dead : he expired between eleven and twelve o'clock 
this morning. . . . Probably no public man ever had more ardent or 
more numerous friends. He was a man of great nobleness of heart. 
He has impressed his mind upon the policy of the country ; an 
impress, however, which is becoming fainter every year. On the 



372 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

slavery question, he has always been far in advance of the people 
among whom he lived. Had he belonged to the North, he would 
have become an antislavery man, and not a treacherous or perfidious 
one like Mr. Webster. He has lived to see Webster die a moral 
death, and Webster sees him die a natural one. I have no doubt, 
such has been the secret hostihty between them, that each is rejoiced 
at the fortune of the other. Rivals for public favor for so many 
years, then- competition is now at an end. Both have failed in the 
supreme object of their ambition. Would that all politicians and 
all men would learn a lesson from so instructive an example ! 

Washington, July 1, 1852. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — ... My friend Henry Barnard, Esq., 
who for many years was Secretary of the Board of Education, either 
in Connecticut or in Rhode Island, is about to visit England and 
Scotland, partly on account of his health, and partly to see your 
schools. You have always been pai'tial enough to affix a higher 
value to my services on the subject of education than I could hon- 
estly claim or fairly expect. If you will put double all the credit 
you have ever given to me, and pass it to Mr. Barnard's account, 
you will hardly do his extraordinary services more than justice. 
His mind is full of wisdom, and his life has been full of devotion on 
this subject. 

You will have learned, before receiving this, the event of our party 
Presidential nomiaation. What an awful moral has been derived from 
the fate of those who have been false to freedom ! Every one of 
those Northern men, who, for the last half-dozen years, have devoted 
themselves to slavery, have been set aside ; and those men who 
suffered and indirectly promoted all the atrocities of the Mexican 
war, though against all their own professions, did, by that very 
derehction from duty, raise up two warriors to come in and pluck 
away the honors they had forfeited their integrity to obtain. Was 
it not a just retribution ? 

There is all the difference between the candidates that there is 
between a hero and his valet de chamhre. Scott, too, is an anti- 
slavery man. Pierce will be the merest tool of slavery. The 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN, 373 

Democratic Convention was almost in toto a proslavory body, and 
the ultra proslavery portion of it prevailed in the selection of Pierce. 
In the Whig Convention, the antislavery element prevailed ; so that, 
though the contest is implicated with other matters, and its real 
issues are somewhat obscured, yet, if Scott is elected, it will be a 
great antislavery triumph. It was the first time that the antisla- 
very element ever prevailed in any national convention. 

Mrs. Mann and the children have gone home. I live here alone, 
and, of course, forlorn. I hear from them every day, and they are 
well. With kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Combe, 
I remain, as ever, yours truly, 

HOEACE MANN. 

The long and tender friendship which existed between 
Mr. Mann and Mr. Barnard, beginning in their common 
duties in the educational field, finds little record in these 
pages, for the want of letters which have been lost. They 
always took counsel together, and, though men of differ- 
ent theological views, were equally liberal and universal 
in their administration of schools ; feeling alike that it 
was the vital and not the speculative part of religion that 
should be taught in them. 

July 8, 1852. 

... I see by the telegraphic report, that at a meeting of the 
Native- American party at Trenton, N. J., this week, Mr. Webster 
was nominated for the Presidency. This makes his position su- 
.premely ridiculous. It is an insignificant party, founded on the 
narrow basis of being born in America or out of it. If Mr. Webster 
does not notice it, there stands the nomination to show his power. 
If he declines it, everybody wiU laugh at him. 



Washington, Aug. 10, 1852. 
Rev. Theo. Parker. 

My dear Sir, — I hope you did not think the two queries which 

I put to Mrs. Mann imposed any necessity on you to write an 



374 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

answer ; thougli I am so glad to hear from you, that I might be 
tempted to use means a little irregular for that end. 

I sent the question about Gen. Scott's supposititious policy be- 
cause I think justice to be the highest policy. I know you thinlc 
so too. It being my belief that Scott is an anti-war man and an 
anti-annexation man, I think it wrong, or rather it would be very 
wrong in me, to intimate the contrary. Besides, the tendency of 
all such statements is to put the two Presidential candidates, Scott 
and Pierce, upon the same ground ; whereas I think their principles, 
desires, and purposes are very diverse. I know there is little if any 
difference in the platforms ; but there may be all the difference there 
is between life and death in two pilots, though both profess to steer 
by the same chart. One may wreck you, while the other may get 
you safely into port. 

A strong effort is made, by men who care more for democracy 
than for antislavery, to make it out that freedom has more to hope 
from the success of Pierce than from that of Scott ; but this I 
believe to be a great mistake, and I do not think the argument 
ingenuous. 

As to the amount of the Free-soil vote, it must be remembered, 
that, in 1848, New York alone gave one hundred and twenty thou- 
sand votes for Yan Buren. Now, if she gives fifty thousand, I shall 
be agreeably disappointed. 

Our loss of Rantoul is very great. I am also struck with ex- 
ceeding sadness, because this is the second blow that our cause haa 
received. Taylor's death let in the whole pack of slavery blood- 
hounds, and they have wantoned in their power ever since. Will 
not Rantoul's death unleash another pack ? I fear so. Nothing 
but my faith in God saves me from despair ; for just now I can 
hardly " walk by sight." H. M. 

Washington, July 15, 1852. 

I walked an hour yesterday, including sunset-time, on the south- 
east terrace ; and a greater variety and variegation of the " fields of 
air" I never saw. There was no wind; so that the changes were 
merely atmospheric and chemical. But such rapidity of scene-shift- 
ing I never before saw. At every turn I took, a new celestial tap- 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 375 

estiy was displayed. There was no noise of ropes and pulleys ; but 
the change was complete. The Gobelins could make nothing finer ; 
but oh ! for extent and rapidity of production, what are the Gobelins 
to the great Manufacturer ? How I longed for you and the children ! 

I see that Mr. Tallmadge of New York comes into direct colli- 
sion with Mr. Webster's "retainers" in Boston. He made a 
public speech in New- York City the evening of the day that Mr. 
Webster passed through there. In that speech, he said he had seen 
Mr. Webster that day, who told him there was nothing to be done 
but to support the regular nominations. This statement the " Bos- 
ton Journal " says it is " authorized directly and authoritatively to 
deny." This brings out Mr. Tallmadge, who re-affirms his state- 
ment. The truth is, Webster is so deeply wounded he cannot get 
cured. He would rather defeat everybody than be thus set aside 
himself. 

July 16. 

. . . Miss Beecher prays, if I want any more comfort in this life, 
that I will not try to build up a college at the West, and says 
Mr. Stowe held up his hands in deprecation at the thought. So 
you see what persons who hioiv about things think our prospect 
would be. 

I should like to see Father Pierce anywhere, even in a picture ; 
but still think that he and I, and such looking people, ought to 
let those who don't know us inquire how we look, rather than 
show our faces. 

I see that some one, in a Maine paper, says he wanted to nomi- 
nate Balph Waldo Emerson for President, and Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne for Vice-President ; but, seeing they have such good men as 
Scott and Graham up, he concludes not to do any thing more about 
it. Wit ought not to run its head against a stump of any kind. 
That man forgot that both President and Vice-President cannot 
come from the same State. 

I do feel homesick here. When I was here in the summer of 
'48, I had so much to do, that I had no time to think how I felt : 
I was still Secretary then. The next summer I spent here (1850) 
was the year of the slavery controversy ; and I was too much alive 
to the immense interests at stake to have any consciousness of my 



376 ' LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

own personal pleasures or sufferings. But this summer there is 
nothing to engross me, and my thoughts fly home, morning, noon, 
and night. I see nobody, and live a lonely life, and, I fear, an 
unprofitable one. I am thinking all the time that it is the last 
summer I shall ever spend in Washington. 

July 27. 

... I should like to see Rev. Theodore Parker move a table 
without touching it, directly or indirectly. Suppose what we call 
electricity is the motive power of the universe, embracing magnet- 
ism, caloric, gravitation, &c. ; suppose the vital principle in us — 
at least the principle of mere physical life — is electricity too : 
may not an organized possessor of this principle be able to exert a 
force stronger than that which operates upon unorganized bodies, 
or one organized being be able to exert a controlling influence over 
another organized being? If so, why may not the battery in a 
man's brain overcome the natural gravitation of a table ? I have 
seen a magnet, that could lift but a few pounds when acting alone, 
lift seventeen hundred-weight when a current of magnetism was 
poured through it. Now, if the brain could evolve this amount, 
why should not that lift according to its size, structure, &c. ? This 
is all I have to say on the subject. 

Kossuth designed to leave, as I suppose, in a way to secure pri- 
vacy. As for his going incog, for any bad purpose, I do not believe 
a word of it ; nor have I heard a lisp, to prove it, of any credible 
testimony. A repojt was sent abroad that he had gone without pay- 
ing his debts. There could not have been a word of truth in it : 
a regular Hunker lie. 

I agree with you that history is bad reading for children. What, 
then, must be thought of a great part of the Old Testament, which 
records as terrible crimes as any to be found on record ? It is too 
terrible a world to make children acquainted with. It is said we 
must look back to get wisdom to du-ect us when going forward. I 
hope we shall soon get wisdom elsewhere, or be so far advanced 
as to need no past warning. Biography of the right sort of lives 
is the better reading for children. And science, and the elements 
of science, — what can be better than that, where we do see God 
in his works ? Here the mind will find its true discipline. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 377 

I send yoTi a " Liberator," which has a communication from the 
reformed John Wesley, on the last page ; also a speech of Mr. T. 
Parker's, on the inside. What can Mr. Parker mean by saying, 
that, if Gen. Scott is elected, we shall probably have an annexation 
of a "large shoe " of Mexico during the next four years? Will 
the good gained by making a man out worse than he is repay the 
evil ? Mr. Parker has been so much wronged himself, that he 
should be careful about wronging others. 

In 1837, in a speech delivered in New York by Mr. Webster, 
he said, — 

" On the general question of slavery, a great portion of the 
community is already strongly excited. The subject has not only 
attracted attention as a question of pohtics, but it has struck a far 
deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the religious feelings of the 
country ; it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He 
is a rash man indeed, little conversant with human nature, and 
especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the 
people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is 
to be trifled with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be 
respected. It may be reasoned with ; it may be made willing — I 
believe it is entirely willing — to fulfil all existing engagements 
and all existing ties ; to uphold and defend the Constitution as it 
is established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which 
it does actually contain : but to coerce it into silence, to endeavor 
to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, 
warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors would inevitably 
render it, — should all this be attempted, I know nothing, even 
in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would not be 
endangered by the explosion which might follow." 

What an apostasy has his been ! 

Washington, July 27, 1852. 

My deae, Downek, — What is said about the Pittsburg Con- 
vention ? From what I see and hear, I apprehend the current of 
feeling in Massachusetts sets in favor of nominating Hale, rather 
than Chase. For any genuine Free-soiler this would be the worst 
policy. That nomination should be such as to cut into the Demo- 



378 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

cratie party. Notwithstanding all that some of the Free-soil papers 
say about the equal proslaveryism of Scott and Pierce, it is not at 
all improbable there is the whole difference between the annexa- 
tion and the wn-annexation of Cuba, between the division and the 
non-division of California, in these candidates. How, then, can any 
real lover of liberty fail to give the scales such a turn as shall check 
slavery, and hold it at bay ? Are not our Free-soil friends, in their 
zeal to help the fortunes of the coalition, misled on this point ? 
You, who have great influence with them, ought to make that 
influence felt. I wish you were to be at Pittsburg. The nomina- 
tion there made may bar slavery, or help it on. To-morrow, 
Sumner means to speak. He needs combativeness, which he has 
not got. Don't you think I could spare him a little of mine, 
with advantage to us both ? He will make a gi'eat speech, be as- 
sured of that. He has all the material of all who have hitherto 
argued the question ; and, besides, the greatest speech can always 
be made on the right side. 

I am awfully homesick. The summer is dull : nothiag is upon 
the tapis in which I take any special interest, and my heart is with 
my family. 

With affectionate regards to you and yours, 

I am, as ever, your friend, 

HORACE MANN. 



Aug. 8. I have sad news for you to-day ; which, however, you 
will have heard before this reaches you. 

Mr. Ptantoul is dead. 

I have been spending the morning about him, and the arrange- 
ments to be made on his account. It will devolve on me to an- 
nounce his death in the House to-morrow : so I can write you no 
more to-day. 

Aug. 9. The melancholy duty is done. . . . Poor Mrs. Rantoul ! 
Of course it is a case where there is no language of external signs. 
The heart alone knows it. She anived in the morning : he died 
that night. Eveiy thing was done that could be done. Funeral 
services were performed at his lodgings. At four o'clock, Mrs. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 379 

Rantoul, accompanied by several friends, took the cars for home. 
What a sad meeting ! 

Washington, Aug. 12, 1852. 

I never had the slightest doubt that the " old Hunkers " of Mas- 
sachusetts would rejoice over Rantoul's death. The Hunkers re- 
joice in his removal, just as the proslavery men rejoiced in Gen. 
Taylor's death, some of whom said they believed it to be an express 
interposition of Providence to defeat his work ! 

Drayton and Sayres are pardoned through Sumner's influence, 
and off in free territory. This was done last evening. The mar- 
shal of the district, who has the control of the jail, received the order 
for their enlargement last evening. He called on Sumner to go to 
the jail with him, but learned from the jailer that Mr. Stuart, the 
Secretary of the Interior, a Virginia man, had sent to him to delay 
their enlargement till this morning. Sumner saw at once what his 
object was, — that is, to get a requisition from the Grovernor of Vir- 
ginia to take them into Virginia for trial ; for some of the slaves whom 
they took ia their schooner were from Virginia. He therefore in- 
sisted on the marshal's executing the order of the President for 
their release unmediately ; and, as the marshal had no responsible 
excuse for not complying, they went to the jail, and the men were 
enlarged. Sumner took them up into the street, and then made 
arrangements at once for taking them to Baltimore last night, which 
was done ; and this morning they started from Baltimore for a free 
State, and are safe. He was afraid some sham process would be got 
up to hold them here until notice could be given to the Governor 
of Virginia. They are safe. Sumner has done well in this : but it 
could not have been done until now ; that is, until the nominations 
had been made. 

Aug. 15. 

I have not gone the journey yet, and do not know that I shall. 
If a little bit of a speech which I am thinking of, but not talking 
about, were off my hands, I might ; but I do not know when it will 
be, if at all. . . . 

I had encouragement for the floor when I wrote to you : but the 
House passed a resolution stopping debate; so the promise was 



380 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

worth nothing. The next time we go into " Committee of the 
Whole," &c., we, of course, shall have a new chairman, and then 
I shall be as far off as ever. 

Aug. 17. 

Miss Dix's bill is now up. We are calling the yeas and nays 
upon it. It will pass, I think, without doubt ; but I shall let you 
know before I seal this. 

Miss Dix finds new work all the time. This District has about 
forty lunatics, which it supports at the Institution of Maryland, near 
Baltimore. These are all to be turned out in a few days ; and she 
is trying to get a bill passed for a hospital in this District. . . . 

The bill for a hospital has passed the House ! . . . 

I thought I was to have the floor just now, and my heart went 
pit-a-pat ; for I have never yet been able to speak anywhere without 
trepidation. But the chairman gave it to another man. At ten 
minutes to three, I shall try again. 

Miss Dix's bill passed by yeas 98, nays 54. It always took two- 
thu'ds to get it up : so a majority did not help us. 

Miss Dix is alarmed about her land-bill in the Senate ; but I 
think it will go through there. She wishes to get through here, so 
that she can go to Nova Scotia, where they have made an appropri- 
ation for a hospital. . . , 

I had rather a boisterous time for half an hour with my speech. 
It blew hard ; but I weathered the storm. 

Don't be alarmed when you see what Polk said about my not 
holding myself responsible ; that is, according to the laws of the 
dtiello. He is a poor drunken fellow from Tennessee, for whom no 
y one has any respect, though he is brother of the former President. 
They tried to choke me down : but they might as well have tried to 
roar down old Boreas ; for, when I " gets up^' a. little, I am quite 
as hard to be subdued as the more noisy ones. 

I hope to have it all printed, and perhaps in your hands, this 
week. 

You will see what an attack Polk made on Parson Fowler yester- 
day, — not violent and furious, but annoying. He said to the par- 
son coseyly, while speaking, "You know we two are Christians." 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 381 

Polk is drunk every day. But it is now said that it will be honor- 
ably arranged, and there will be no " coffee and pistols " between 
them. 

Aug. 27, 1852. 

Sumner spoke about four hours yesterday ; and it was a very 
finished and able speech, sustaining in every point his high repu- 
tation as a jurist and a scholar. It was delivered in a very elegant 
and finished manner. To speak in full, the 26th of August, 1852. 
redeemed the 7th of March, 1850. 

"Webster came into the Senate very early in the speech. He 
took a seat not far from Sumner, and about eight feet from me ; so 
situated that I must look into his face, or turn my head. I looked 
at him fascinatingly. I think he felt the magnetism streaming out 
of me. In about two minutes, his countenance fell : he got up and 
walked round to the other side of the Senate Chamber, staid a 
while, and went off. Sumner, during all the time he was there, 
was in the least solid part of his speech. It was one of his best 
orations, well studied and well deUvered, and will tell on the coun- 
try, and be a speech for a book and for history. 

That drunken Clemens of Alabama jumped up instanter, and 
said, — 

" Mr. President, it is proper sometimes to take notice of the 
ravings of a lunatic ; but the yelpings of a puppy are not to be 
regarded." 

Miss Dix's bill has gone over to the next session. She sent for 
me yesterday afternoon in despair. But she has got an appropria- 
tion of a hundred thousand dollars for a hospital in this District ; 
and it is thought that her land-bill can be carried next session. It 
has passed the House, and, unless some amendments are made to it, 
will not have to come back here again. 

Aug. 28. 

... I got off a speech yesterday ; but it was too late to let you 
know by yesterday's mail. The Southern men tried to stop me by 
starting points of order. But it was always without reason : so I 
went on, and gave them a pretty strong blast. I think it best to 



382 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

show them that they can't stop debate ; that, the more they try, the 
more it won't stop. 

I wish I could be at home to behold the flowers and their behold- 
ers ; but it is of no use to talk about that at present, 

Washington, Aug. 28, 1852. 
Rev. a. Craig. 

My dear Sir, — I heard of a fact to-day which gave me tem- 
porary pleasure and permanent pain. It was that you had been 
appUed to to become a member of the Faculty of Antioch Col- 
lege, and had decUned. When the idea of your being connected 
with that institution flashed through my mind, it awakened every 
thing of hope, and turned hope into certainty. It was a revulsion 
of feeling, that carried my blood with it, to hear you had declined. 

A man like you will do good anywhere ; but how can you do so 
much good anywhere else on this earth as before children and with 
children, and transfusing your spirit into young men and women ? 

Had it ever occurred to me that you were a candidate with the 
committee, I do not know that I should not have made your ac- 
ceptance a sine qua non. I know of no man in the world whose 
daily co-operation in such a work I should so much delight in as in 
yours. I do not expect, even on the contingency of my appoint- 
ment, to remain connected with the institution for many years. My 
health and age denote this. How dehghtful the idea of leaving it 
in the hands of such a man as yourself! — able to work, willing to 
work, and qualified to work in the best spirit, and, of course, with 
the best results. 

I have not time to wiite you at any length. I send you this 
lament from the midst of the roar and din of our Babel ; and can 
only add, that I do most vehemently hope, that, if a professorship 
is tendered you, you will accept it. 

Can you not come and see us this autumn at West Newton ? 

Yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



CHAPTER VI. 

^N the 15th of September, 1852, Mr. Mann was nomi- 
nated for Governor of Massachusetts by a con- 
vention of the Free Democracy of the State assembled 
at Lowell. On the same day, he was chosen President of 
Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, Greene County, Ohio. 
He accepted the latter office. I give one or two para- 
graphs from speeches of his friends in regard to the 
former nomination. In the State Convention of the Free 
Democracy in 1852, the Hon. Anson Burlingame said, 
after the nomination of Mr. Mann for Governor, — 

" As to tlie candidate we have nominated, I shall say nothing but 
that his fame is as wide as the universe. It was my fortune to be, 
some time since, in Guildhall, London, when a debate was going on. 
The question was, whether they should instruct their representatives 
in favor of secular education. They voted that they would not do 
it. But a gentleman then rose, and read some statistics from one of 
the Reports of the Hon. Horace Mann. That extract reversed the 
vote in the Common Council of London. I never felt prouder of 
my country. I call upon the young men of the Commonwealth, 
who have grown up under the inspiration of his free schools, to sus- 
tain their champion, and to carry his name over the hills and through 
the pleasant valleys of Massachusetts during the present canvass, 
with that enthusiasm which shall result in a glorious victory." 

Seth Webb, Esq., at the same convention, said, — 

" Two years ago, in spite of her old resistance to tyrants and her 
Anglo-Saxon devotion to the indestructible rights of all, Massa- 
chusetts was forced, under the lead of her chosen and mighty but 

383 



384 . LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

apostate cliampion, to draggle her imperial wings in the bloody tears 
of a slave. From that day of horror, the statue of Liberty has been 
veiled among us; and the veil is not yet quite, though partially, with- 
drawn. The deed of shame will not be perfectly eflFaced until we 
place in the executive chair of Massachusetts a governor who is for 
liberty, and nothing but Uberty, from the crown of his head to the 
sole of his foot ; who will guard the personal security of the hum- 
blest and weakest individual on her soil with all the civil and mili- 
tary force in the Commonwealth ; and who, if the feeblest infant 
were carried from her limits in violation of eternal rights and the 
laws of the State, would bring it back, if need be, at the head of 
an army, or resign his office for shame. Such a man, we believe, is 
Horace Mann. On the 5th day of April, 1851, Thomas Simms 
was carried away. On the 25th of April, 1851, Charles Sumner 
was elected senator of the United States. That was our first 
answer to the act. If we can follow it with the election of Horace 
Mann as Governor, I think we may rest somewhat content." 

And Hon. Henry Wilson, at the same convention, 
said, — 

" Gentlemen, you have selected, as your standard-bearer in the 
coming contest, one of the ablest men of Massachusetts and of the 
country. For six years he has on the floor of Congress, with 
fidehty, maintained the principles of the ' old man eloquent,' whose 
successor he is. The Whigs in convention assembled, a few days 
after the death of Mr. Adams, whose closing years were devoted to 
freedom and humanity, resolved that they wished their representa- 
tive to follow in the track of Mr. Adams, and to be true to liberty. 
Mr. Mann was the nominee of that convention. And to-day there 
is not a man, here or in Massachusetts, that does not know, that at 
all times, and on all occasions, he has been true to the vote of the 
Whig party in the year that they put him in nomination, and true 
to the cause of freedom. And though, gentlemen, after being thus 
true, he was sacrificed, or the attempt was made to sacrifice him, by 
the Webster retainers of the Eighth Congressional District, yet the 
people, the Free Democracy, hundreds of Democrats of that district, 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 385 

and, to their honor be it said, many Whigs who could not bow to 
slavery, took him and sustained him, and all together returned him 
to Congress by an overwhelming expression of popular approbation. 
Within a few days he has uttered, on the floor of Congress, one of 
the most brilliant speeches for liberty that ever fell from human 
lips in our own or any other country. Over the struggles of the 
future it will exert an influence perhaps unequalled by any effort 
of our time." 

West Newton, Sept. 10, 1852- 
Key. S. J. May. 

My dear Sir, — You say so many kind things of my speech, that 
T am nonplussed. It really seems to me a very moderate affair, 
and was so far below what I wanted to say, that I had actually come 
to the conclusion not to speak. But some of my friends said I 
must speak, even if I did not print : so you have it. Valeat 
quantum, &c. 

Does it not seem as if the Lord was not on our side ? Think of 

losing Rantoul, who held many a bad man under his hand, who 

will now run riot ; and Mr. Fowler, who was a real Free-soil Whig, 

and stood very much as I stood in 1848 ! . . . 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



West Newton, Oct. 20, 1852. 
Rev. Theodore Parker. 

My dear Sir, — I am afraid you will be " soiTy you 'listed," 
so many requests for service are appended thereto. 

The enclosed correspondence explains itself, as they say; only 
that my letter is so misprinted, from the middle onwards, as to make 
worse nonsense than I did. 

You will see that the New-Bedford people are in a rage. I have 
allowed the colored race superiority of the affections and sentiments, 
— the upper end of man's nature ; but they want the intellect too. 
As for their " demon " of colonization, I did not hint at it ; but so 
Richertson tries to understand me. 

Now, they have requested the " Liberator" to publish the corre- 
spondence ; and, if my friend P could get hold of such a thing, 

25 



386 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

my experience teaches me that nothing would delight his pious ^oul 
more than to make the worst of it. The colored people of Boston 
are, at present, very well disposed towards me and our cause ; but 
it would be in the power of the " Liberator " to turn all their sac- 
chai'ine into acetous by the infusion of one phial-full of innuendo or 
suspicion about California. Can you stop the chemical operation ? 
You can, if any man can ; and therefore I take the liberty to trouble 
you with the enclosed and this clumsy explanation, and remain, as 
ever, yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



West Newton, Nov. 8, 1852. 
Rev. a. Craig. 

My dear Sir, — I owe you certainly as much as one apology a 
day for all the time your late excellent and beautiful letters have 
laid before me unanswered. But I have only to mention the word 
" business " or "engagements," and you will understand all the 
rest, and forgive me. 

Last week, the first Faculty meeting of Antioch College was held 
at my house. They were here two whole days, and parts of the 
preceding and following. We had a very full and free discussion 
on a great variety of points, and came most harmoniously to unani- 
mous conclusions. We have sketched a •provisional, not final, 
course of preparatory and undergraduate studies, which I intend to 
copy and send to you for your revision and suggestions. 

I found a most remarkable coincidence of opinion and sentiment 
among the persons present, not only as to theory, but in practical 
matters. . . . We were all teetotalers ; all anti-tobacco men ; all 
antislavery men ; a majority of us believers in phrenology ; all anti- 
emulation men, — that is, all against any system of rewards and 
prizes designed to withdraw the mind from a comparison of itself 
with a standard of excellence, and to substitute a rival for that 
standard. We agreed entirely in regard to religious and chapel 
exercises, &c. The meeting was very satisfactory, and has raised 
my hopes very much as to the ultimate success of the enterprise. I 
can never, however, sufficiently regret that you are not of our 
number, I hope you will be ere long. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 387 

I read to the persons present a part of your letter of Oct. 14, 
in wMch you speak of a magazine for the place. We all ex- 
claimed that you were the person to carry out your own idea. You 
must leave your limited circle' at Blooming Grrove, and speak to 
them, and to all good men from Yellow Springs. What a wide 
sphere for your improving influence ! 

You speak of lectures and of my lecturing. We have no Ortho- 
dox lecturers of any great celebrity amongst us. Emerson, Whip- 
ple, Parker, T. S. Kmg, Sumner, Pierpont, &c., are all heretics of 
a very malignant type when tried by the Orthodox standard. The 
truth is, the iron bars of Orthodoxy do not allow a man to expand 
into the qualities indispensable for touching the common heart of 
men. Witness Beecher and Bushnell, who reach the public soul 
only because they have broken from their cage. . . . 

Yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



The meeting in question proved to be no true test of 
the opinions of several members present, one of whom 
afterwards ripened into the most deadly enemy of Mr. 
Mann and of the college ; and another of whom, not a 
member of the Faculty proper, almost shipwrecked the 
institution by mismanagement of its financial affairs. 
Indeed, its final pecuniary ruin may be largely traced to 
this cause. 

West Newton, Nov. 22, 1852. 
Rev. a. Craig. 

My dear Sir, — ... I have a strong desire to see you, and 
will try to be with you on the 8th of December next. My hesita- 
tion has arisen only from the fact of my having a cold ; or, what is 
worse, my extreme sensibility to colds. I need very much to be 
put into a better body. My health was ruined before I knew how 
to take care of it. My own house has a genial, summer tempera- 
ture all winter; and, on a lecturing expedition last week, I was 
obliged to sleep in a kind of barn-chamber, where I contracted a 
terrible cold. I have thawed it out of me to some extent, and hope 



388 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

to get over it -wholly. In making an engagement for the 8tli of 
December, I must express, wliat is always implied, sickness ex- 
cepted. It is but right, however, to add, that, with all my engage- 
ments for the last twenty years, I have never failed in but one of 
them ; and then the doctors forbade my getting up from my bed to 
meet it. 

Your little tract is admirable. How it would suit George 

o 

Combe ! When I go to you, you must give me some for distribu- 
tion. 

My subject will be "Great Britain," unless you can have all 
your teachers present from the region round about ; in which case, 
if preferred, I would deliver a lecture to teachers. The latter I 
should personally prefer ; but I should want a sufficient number of 
teachers, besides the ex-officio teachers, fathers and mothers, to feel 
sure that I had some special sympathizers. 

Yours as ever, very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Salem, Nov. 25, 1852. 

. . . By the papers which I see this morning, I think it is almost 
certain that the coalition is defeated. Rum and proslavery have 
done it. And, though I hope they will not yet triumph in Massa- 
chusetts, the opposite principles are not likely to be in the ascend- 
ant. We must fall back again upon our unfailing support, that 
God is just ; and rely upon the future, since we have so little en- 
couragement in the present. It is disastrous. As for my personal 
relations to the result, they are not worth a thought. I was pre- 
pared for it, so far as I am concerned, but could have rejoiced 
heartily in the triumph of our cause, or rather causes. This opens 
to me the prospect of a year of comparative leisure, which I need. 
I have a great deal of work to do with my brain, and now see some 
prospect that it may be done. Personally it may be all for the 
best, and for the Western enterprise better yet. 

Cincinnati, Dec. 1, 1852. 

Here I am. I wish you could know it before this can reach you. 
. . . While in the boat on the Ohio (by the way, I think I shall 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 380 

never venture to commit any oiFenee, and then run away for impu- 
nity), sitting quietly reading, a gentleman came up, and asked if 
this was Mr. Mann. Of course, I had to confess. He said he 
believed I knew a sister of his; and after a pause added, " Grrace 
Grreenwood." It was her brother, who lives in Cincinnati. Soon 
he introduced me to his mother ; and there stood revealed the whole 
mystery of Grraee's genius. She is a beautiful old lady ; must be 
seventy or seventy-five (for married ladies, especially if they have 
nine children, may be so old) . She says she was brought up after 
the strictest sect of the Orthodox, but she has wandered very far 
from them now. She went to visit her friends in Connecticut many 
years ago. Divisions had broken the old society in pieces ; and a 
Unitarian had been settled, and was preaching in the meeting-house 
where she sat when a child. There was to be a meeting ; and she 
tried to persuade her relatives to accompany her, but they would 
not countenance so bad a man. She went, and was delighted. 
She went on and described the minister, but could not remember 
his name. I said, " Mr. May? " — " Oh, yes ! " she replied. 

She talks excellent sense in good language. She is a good 
woman to be born of. 

Washington, Dec. 5, 1852. 

Here I am in slave-land again. It is the charmingest of days. 
The eastern sky, as seen from my window, is all golden with the 
morning light. What a world, if it only had jit inhabitants ! 

I hope you will keep the children out as much as possible this 
winter. I long to have them healthy, and inured to hardships. 
What a blessing it is to be able to endure physical exposures ! It 
is next to being able to endure moral ones. 

The Baileys more than hinted to me that Mrs. Stowe is getting a 
second park of artillery ready, which will be more formidable to the 
South than all the metal of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." You know, 
throughout the South, the answer made to her first work is, that it 
is an exaggeration, a caricature ; so strong an over-statement, that 
it is not merely valueless, but mischievous. This view the North- 
ern Hunkers adopt ; and the English, so far as they dare. Now, 
her recalcitration is to collect facts, and accumulate them, from 



390 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Southern authorities, proving all, and more than all, the abomina- 
tions she has described, out of their own mouths. Won't this be a 
stiffener ? Grod bless her ! I think I will wiite to her to-day, and 
put her on the track of some enormities which will help to deepen 
the damnation of her accusers. 

Cleveland, Dec. 13, 1852. 

A striking development came out here yesterday respecting the 
course of Andrew Jackson Davis, who is here lecturing on the 
" spiiitual world " matters. To give the whole force of the incident, 
I must go back a little. When Mr. Parker was out here a few 
weeks ago, he was advertised to lecture on a certain evening ; but 
the train of cars was delayed by some accident, and he did not 
arrive in season. The audience being all assembled, Davis, who 
was present, walked upon the platform, and told them he would 
occupy a portion of the time. He said he could give them what 
Parker's lecture would be ; but he had some get-off to excuse him- 
self for not doing it. He was afterwards badgered for saying he 
could do it, and not doing it ; and was told it would have been an 
excellent chance for demonstrating, in an irrefutable manner, the 
soundness of his claims to a knowledge of the absent and future. 

Yesterday afternoon, he was lecturing again ; and now was pre- 
sented the opportunity he had so foohshly lost before. So he said 
Mr. Horace Mann was to lecture here on Tuesday evening next, 
on woman ; and he would communicate to his audience some things 
that I should say. He went on to detail some parts of what my 
lecture would be ; when a Mr. Morton, who had read a report of it, 
in Davis's own words, in the " New- York Tribune," rose, and asked 
him if he had not seen the self-same statements in that paper. 
Whereupon the prophetic candle by which this seer looked into 
the future suddenly went out. 

Washington, Jan. 29, 1853. 
... I went to see the Aztec children this morning. What 
ninnies they are ! They call the boy sixteen or eighteen years of 
age, and the gu-1 ten or twelve. The first is thu-ty-three inches 
high, the second twenty-nine, of a swarthy color, or, as I should 
suppose, an ultra-Creole complexion. The boy has no head, or 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 391 

almost none, — about as large as a very large apple, and almost 
wholly behind his ears. The gu-l's is much better shaped, and she 
seems to be very much his superior. What can such brains do 
with the problem of the solar system, or with conic sections, or with 
the tough problems of ethics and jurisprudence ? Who has brains 
large enough to answer these questions ? 

There was an advertisement in the " National Intelligencer " to- 
day of the sale of a slave at an auction-room. I was on the spot in 
season to buy ; but some private arrangement had been made, and 
the parties did not aj)pear. I wanted to see how I could manage 
such an argument for atheism as the sale of a human being would 
be. 

One of our members died this morning. It seems as if the fact 
of death and our views of death could not belong to the same system, 
and that one or the other must be changed, or else what a contra- 
diction and what sorrows ! ... Of your mother's eternal weal I can 
have no doubt, if any mortal has eternal weal ; but my early asso- 
ciations with death are too much for my reason. 

Philadelphia, Feb. 4. 

I had a house jammed and squeezed last night. Mrs. was 

there, and mourned over my heresies most grievously. Why is it, 
that when one of the Grentiles comes almost over to what these 
" Zion's people " think to be right (or know, for they hnow every 
thing) , but still, if there is the least interstice left, — why is it, I 
say, that they pounce upon him more ferociously, and maltreat him 
worse, than they do those who still remain in the " outer darkness " ? 
Can you explain this ? 

Feb. 6. I have your letter of Thursday. When will mankind, 
especially womankind, have a declaration of independence against 
fashion ? If its government were a wise and paternal one, we could 
bear it ; but it is as capricious and arbitrary as Queen Elizabeth, 
and even more cruel than that old hag. 

Feh. 10. ... I dined out to-day, at , and sat next to a 

lady, who, when she heard Mr. Gr. T. Davis speak of II 's 

being a professor in Antioch College, said she thought women had 
enough to do without being professors, and she hoped it was not 



392 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

going to be any rule for otliers. I told her young ladies were to be 
educated there. She didn't know what young ladies wanted of a 
college education. She did not wish to study any thing but the 
piano and drawing : she had no leisure for it. There could not 
be too much drawing ; for she never was tired of that. . . . She had 
some smartness, and would captivate many a young man, I have no 
doubt. It was about an inch and a half from the top of her nose 
to the place where benevolence should have been ; and that was the 
whole space she had for perceptive faculties, which were good, and 
for causality and comparison. 

I found the " woman's-rights " spu-it very intense in Philadel- 
phia, and also a counter-spirit quite as strong. Of course, those 
women whose notions I approach, but do not coincide with, are the 
most violent. I do not think I said a single thing that they had 
any right to be offended at, but am not at all surprised that they 
took offence. I told Mrs. Mott she was too ambitious, because she 
claimed for woman all the highest things in all departments. I con- 
cede her the highest in more than half ; yet she cannot be satisfied. 
But she is a good woman, and I must love her. 

Feb. 13. I have your letter about the children to-day. Your 
accounts of them always interest me, and, when they develop the 
fair side of their natures, always dehght me. Oh that an untainted 
human beins; should be brouo;ht into so foul a world as this ! I am 
getting to be entu'ely reconciled to the theologic idea of the old 
deluge ; and, if I were counsellor, I am not sure but I should pro- 
pose another. 

Feb. 15. . . . Venable has just got the floor, and is going to give 
a talk on public corruption. If I had more faith in his own purity, 
I should like to hear him better. However, it is bad enough ; and 
I don't think he will make his indictment much too comprehensive. 
There is great iniquity here, beyond all question, — increased im- 
mensely since the compromise measures, and made respectable (if 
any such thing can be made respectable) by Webster's known cor- 
ruptions. It is as says it is in Boston, where a general 

demorahzation has invaded all departments of life. How is a remedy 
to be found ? I trust God knows. I don't, unless it be in the con- 
tinued persevering and energetic efforts of all good men for reform. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 393 

Feb. 17. I went to hear Thackeray again last evening. I did 
not like the lecture so well as the preceding one. It had much 
quiet humor, which keeps a pleasant expression on the face ; but there 
was not a high sentiment in either lecture, and he spoke of the 
intemperate habits of the wits of Queen Anne's time as if he would 
like to have drunk with them. Not a word of moralizing, from 
beginning to end ; not a caveat entered in behalf of youth : and I 
think a young man would go away with the idea that there is a 
natural affinity between genius and intemperance. I used to observe 
in Miss Catherine Sedgwick's works, that she could never let a sub- 
ject go until her benevolence had had its chance to dilate upon it. 
Thackeray goes over this whole field of intellect most wide and 
beautiful ; but neither benevolence, conscientiousness, or veneration 
seem permitted or desnous to say a word. He appreciated Pope's 
power, and made it stand out wonderfully ; but he found some 
traits of meanness in him. His redeemiag point, so far as his affec- 
tions and sympathies were concerned, was his love of his mother ; 
and this Thackeray did expand and adorn as if he loved his own 
mother. 

Washington, Feb. 13, 1853. 

My dear Downer, — I heard Thackeray last evening, whom I 
suppose you heard in Boston. I am every day getting more in love 
with the viscera, thoracic and abdominal. I reverence a good cere- 
bral cavity; but a good chest and a good "refectory" below it 
are hardly less important. I never understood the fall meaning of 
the favorite Enghsh word "pluck" until I took it in its hteral 
sense : now I know exactly what it means, and believe in it. Our 
Southern men are vastly more developed in that region than our 
Northern, and therefore they override us. High moral develop- 
ments are the only adequate antagonists to this vigor and valor of 
the " lower organs ; " but, alas ! how httle of this there is ! 

I was a good deal excited as well as wearied by my Western trip. 
As the drunken man said to his minister, when he met him in the 
highway, and wished to conceal from him the fact of intoxication by 
a striking remark, "There seems to be considerable land round 
here," so I say in regard to the West. What a vast framework 



394 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

it is ! With what, in the providence of God, is it to be filled up ? 
Ay, that depends upon who shall fill it. They need such men as 
you and Howe out there. This is true; but where on God's earth, 
too, do they need such men more than in Massachusetts ? 

I went to Yellow Springs. It is a beautiful place. What 
thoughts rush into the mind when we survey the scenes of antici- 
pated labor, or look upon those of the past ! — not thoughts ; for 
they are molten into feelings, and, by expansion, swell and dilate 
the bosom almost to bursting. When I went to my present home, I 
looked upon it as the place where I hoped to live, and expected to 
die. If thoughts were a graver's tool, what records would be in- 
scribed upon all its trees and its rocks ! But I will not sentimen- 
talize. . . . 

I have nothing new to say of affairs here. The telegraph makes 
you as well acquainted in Boston with all national matters as the 
morning papers do us. I am pleased with the turn which Cuban 
matters are taking. On this subject, and at this time, the slightest 
breeze of opposition to Cuban annexation from the South is worth 
more than any blast that can be made to blow from Northern hills. 

I am to be at home four weeks from yesterday. I hope to see you 

here, still more to see you there ; but here, there, or anywhere, 

I am always yours, 

HOEACE MANN. 



It was early in this year that a controversy took place 
between Mr. Mann and Mr. Wendell Phillips upon the 
point, whether a moral and Christian man could vote or 
hold office under our governments, State and National, 
because of the clause in the Constitution that seemed to 
favor slavery. The excitements of the time made it a 
very personal one ; and few, even of their friends, read 
it all, because it was painful to read a dispute between 
two men whose action tended toward the same good end, 
— human liberty. It was characterized by Mr. Pliillips's 
usual want of insight into character, and lack of justice 
towards those who differ from him. 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 395 

Mr. Mann subsequently wrote a letter to Mr. Garrison, 
which covered the whole ground, and which was published 
m the " Liberator " of July 3, 1853. It will be repub- 
lished in its proper place. 

Washestgton, Feb. 23, 1853. 

Yesterday I dined with Mr. Everett, with the Massachusetts dele- 
gation. What an accomplished man he is I Coming home after nine 
o'clock, I stopped at the President's levee. It was jammed and 
crammed, — east room, green-room, hall, passages, everywhere. I 
took one turn round the east room, and came out and away. It was 
probably the last time that I shall ever be in that house ; and there 
is something solemn-choly in looking for the last time upon a place, 
even when one has little attachment to it. I have not been through 
Mr. Fillmore's room this winter. I cannot touch the hand that 
signed the Fugitive-slave Law. 

Feb. 24, 1858. 

... I saw Miss Dix this morning. She is an angel. She has 
got two or three hundred dollars out of the Government for a 
library for the penitentiary in this District. She has induced Mr. 
Corcoran to give a bit of land, fifteen thousand dollars for a build- 
ing, and ten thousand for a Ubrary , to be called the ' ' Apprentices' 
Library," here. Mr. Corcoran came to her the other day, and said 
he was overwhelmed with solicitations for money. " But you," said 
he, "have carte-hlanche.'''' Isn't she a " woman 's-rights " woman 
worth having ? — going for then* rights in the right way. 

Our whole force at Antioch will have to be educated anew, and 

Calvin and R will have to do it. Mr. knows nothing 

about school-keeping. 

As I look upon the Normal-school guls as part of my thunder, 

though they have R 's hghtning in them to make them shine, 

I thought I would stop last evening for a moment's call on Miss 
Gr . I took her to hear Thackeray. It was an interesting lec- 
ture on Sterne and Goldsmith, with this difference in the manner 
of treating them, — that he brought all Sterne's faults and vices out 
into the boldest relief, and was most assiduous in covering all Gold- 



396 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

smith's vanities up. He did speak once of Goldsmith's "vanities 
and follies," and said he died two thousand pounds in debt; but 
that was all he had to say on the negative side of his character. 
But Sterne's amours and hypocrisies, his sentimentalizing and mor- 
ahzing, while he was decrying his own wife and making love to 
other married women, and his flattering one married woman while 
he ridiculed her to another of his pretended loves, Thackeray did 
bring out, so that no one can ever forget it. Poor Laurence's bones 
will be in no hurry for the resurrection after such disclosures. 

What a warning it is, — these dead things coming to life ! 

I went to Dr. Bailey's Satm-day-evening party last night. 
Thackeray was there, and some notables among the ladies, — among 
the rest a splendid woman from New York, originally from Nan- 
tucket, who scraped acquaintance with me going to Nantucket near- 
ly twenty years ago. She looks young as Hebe, and has a son 
twenty-one years old. That is the way the women ought to be, and 
would be if Grod's laws were thek liigher law. 

Washington, Feb. 26, 1853. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — Can a clergyman, located sixty miles 
out of a city, sitting in his manse, with hardly a sound about him 
save the pleasant ones of waving trees or flowing waters, under- 
stand the hounded, badgered, tormented, fragmentary life of an M. 
C. in Washington? If he can, then I need make no apology for 
so long delaying to answer your late letter. If he cannot, then, 
though innocent, I must be convicted. 

The course of preparatory and undergraduate studies for the 
college has not yet been definitely determined. I sent you a provi- 
sional one. A meeting is called, at my house in West Newton, for 
the 23d of next month. . . . 

I have no idea that our "terms and conditions" will involve 
reg-ulations as to dress. Boys "dressing in girls'" clothes, and 
girls " dressing in boys' " clothes, had better be left, as the old Ro- 
mans left the crime of parricide, unprohibited, presuming it would 
never be committed. I regard the fashions of dress as among the 
accidents and non-essentials of life; and when points of minor im- 
portance are made to take precedence of the " weightier matters of 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 397 

the law, — judgment and justice and mercy," — or healtt, influence, 
and character, it is a misfortune and a weakness. A well-balanced 
mind graduates all the affairs and interests of life on a scale accord- 
ing to their relative importance ; and though young people and im- 
perfectly educated people put some things high up on this scale 
which ought to be low down, and vice versa, yet, as they grow 
wiser, they are constantly re-arran^ng them, and conforming the 
order of caprice or mis-education to the standard of Nature. A well- 
developed mind and heart is the only remedy for youthfal vagaries 
of fancy. . . . 

On your third point, let me say thit I presume no one will be 
compelled to board at the common table. . . . My observation, how- 
ever, has convinced me that serious evils are likely to grow out of the 
self-subsisting method. It is usually adopted by those in straitened 
circumstances. 

The desire of economy, added to the inconveniences of preparing 
food, make too strong a temptation to live meagrely. Now, the phi- 
losophy of living, as you know, is to make strength out of food. 
What can poor Nature do when her supplies are cut off; when, 
like the inhabitants of a besieged city, or mariners on a wreck, she 
is put on the shortest living allowance ? There is a fatal seduction 
about this, too, to the ambitious temperaments. It gives a preter- 
natural vivacity and activity to the faculties, which the deluded 
victim mistakes for strength. But its end is weakness, exhaustion, 
and premature decay. I know some temperaments will bear this 
much better than others. Unfortunately, those to whom it would 
be most injurious are most readily decoyed into it. As I grow 
older (may I hope wiser), I find my former contempt and neglect 
of the thoracic and abdominal viscera — or, to speak it plainly, of 
lungs and belly — gradually changing into a kind of respect, not 
to say homage ; not, however, as I certainly need not tell you, as 
the dii mojores of my regard, but as the dii minores, — without 
whose help the upper deities of the brain are as helpless as a com- 
modore without crew to work his ship. The calamity is, that there 
is such infinite ignorance about the rules of health and life among 
our people, that the kind, the quality, and the amount of food which 



398 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

people consume are determined by every conceivable consideration 
except the riglit ones. 

Of course, the very object of the preparatory school is to fit its 
attendants for admission into the college. At first, this preparatory 
school will be our stock in trade, — the only thing out of which we 
can make capital. With our Eastern teachers, the Pennells, brother 
and sister, if we do not have an unusual kind of school for that lati- 
tude, I shall be disappointed. 

And so you recur again (and I like to read what you so wisely 
and with such simplicity say) to the subject of a press. One thing 
only you omit. You speak admirably of an effect ; but where is 
your cause ? — of a paper ; but where is your editor ? A glorious 
invention, you know, the Frenchman had for preventing the ravages 
of city fires; but, when the conflagration came, he had only a speci- 
men of it in a phial. 

Where is the man to conduct such a paper? That is the " main 
question," by a higher title than any parliamentary law. I have 
pleaded with you to go. Oh, no ! you are too well situated with 
the young people whom you love, and with the old people who love 
you. As for myself, if there are half as many pupils there as some 
of your sanguine coadjutors expect, I shall need a hundred heads, 
as well as a hundred hands, to meet the daily demand upon labor 
and thought. 

When, in my younger legislative days, I projected a hospital for 
the insane, and carried it through our Legislature unassisted, and 
against great opposition, the Grovernor, on whom devolved the ap- 
pointment of commissioners, sent for me, and told me he should 
appoint me (young as I then was) chairman of the Board. I re- 
monstrated. "No," said he: "you have got us into this scrape, 
and you must get us out." What shall I say to the Kev. Austin 
Craig of Blooming Grove, New York ? 

And now, my dear sir, to whom have I given so much time as 
to you? And if anybody upbraids me for this, have I not full justi- 
fication in being able to say, no one deserves it so much as you? 
As ever, most truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 399 

Washington, Feb. 28, 1853. 

My deak Mr. Parker, — ... It is generally understood that 
the Chief Joiner has settled every piece that is to go into his Cabi- 
net. Marcy will be Premier; Cnshing, Attorney-Greneral ; Davis, 
the worst of fire-eaters, for War, — the most exacting, proud, ego- 
tistic of Southern disunionists, taken both for his own sake, and as 
a compliment to the most scandalous and rascally of States. This 
gives the Cabinet not merely a Southern aspect, but even worse, — 
a kind of Mississippi, repudiating aspect. 

Washington, March 1, 1853. 

We sat nine or ten hours yesterday. I suppose the great Cabi- 
net-maker has selected all the boards to make his Cabinet. Mr. 
Marcy, of New York, is expected to be Premier ; that is, Secretary 
of State. Probably Caleb Cushing will be Attorney-General. 
Jefferson Davis, that self-absorbed egotist, a Southern fire-eater and 
disunionist, is to be Secretary of War, — a double compliment, I 
suppose, to the strongest proslavery man and to the repudiating 
State of Mississippi. It has a Southern aspect. I see no chance 
that Pierce will not adopt the Baltimore Platform, extol the Union, 
and those who have saved it. Three days will tell the truth or 
error of these prophecies. 

March 3. This morning I went to see the colored school. I felt 
bound to pay my respects to the cause and the color ; and that was 
my last chance. What a deep interest that school excites ! — so 
many human beings within reach of varied forms of social enjoy- 
ment, and yet separated from them all by an impassable barrier. 
My mind was profoundly moved ; and it was not until long after I 
got back into the whirl of business that other things effaced the im- 
pression. 

March 5. I rejoice to-day that I am one hundred and forty 
miles nearer you, and farther from Washingion. You will doubtless 
have seen Pierce's inaugural before you see this, — fihbustering for 
Cuba, and giiang notice that he is for the Compromise Measures 
and the Fugitive-slave Law ! It is hardly creditable to his head, 
and most disgraceful to his heart. Those who voted for him, under 
the delusion that he would be antislavery, now see that he quotes 



400 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

their support as a proof tliat they, too, are in favor of slave- 
ry !.. . 

I am a free man again. What a Congi-essional hfe I have had ! 
But I have fought a good fight, and come out with a clear conscience. 

How deeply the contrast in the state of the country was im- 
pressed upon my mind yesterday between the position on the sub- 
ject of slavery which it occupies now and which it did occupy four 
years ago ! 

Washington, March 15, 1853. 
To Rev. Theo. Parker. 

Dear Mr. Parker, — The first trial of Drayton and Sayres 
lasted twenty-one successive days. It was in the depth of a Wash- 
ington summer. For the first days of the trial, the court-room was 
packed like a slave-ship. Within springing distance of me, on my 
left hand, planted himself regularly the man who drew his pistol on 
Drayton when he was marched from the river to the jail, and who 
was supposed to come armed into court every day, and to be ready 
to preserve order, — a la Warsaw. 

On the second trial, I went to Washington on purpose. It 
lasted about a fortnight. Here we had the old verdicts set aside, 
and new trials ordered. The third time I also went on purpose. 
The trials lasted about ten days. The accused were saved from a 
penitentiary oifence, and were only fined for a misdemeanor. For 
pai'ticulars, see my volume. 

My expenses were paid; but I never received a cent of a fee, 

nor asked nor expected it. . . . 

H. MANN. 

Boston, March 17, 1853. 

Dear Mr. Mann, — I saw Mr. B. B. Muzzey yesterday. He 
would like to see you when in town. His adviser on the law-ques- 
tion is a snob, one of the vulgarest in town ; crawling upwards, and 
would not like to slip down along his slimy track : so he must not 
offend Curtis and Choate and the rest of that tribe. As I under- 
stand it, this is the dodge just now, — to make the matter of libel a 
technical law-question for the sole consideration of the "judges : " 
then there will be left for the jury the matter of fact as to publi- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 401 

cation, and the matter of penalty as to damages. If they succeed, 

then Judge L. Shaw will decide "as he will decide," and such a 

precedent be established as will delight the central muscle {in loco 

cordis) of all the snobs who are growing into Hunkers, and of all 

the Hunkers who have grown out of snobs. Mr. Muzzey is not 

disposed to submit tamely. We ought to have a ship-money quarrel 

on this matter, with Muzzey for a John Hampden. I think he 

would like to have you of his counsel, but feels delicate about asking 

you. He thinks of Hale and Dana for the matter of fact. 

Grood-by ! 

THEODORE PARKER. 

West Newton, May 22, 1853. 

My dear Downer, — You left the programme of our " Antioch : " 
but I mean you shall see what I say about the natural and moral 
laws ; and so I send it after you. 

The men under whose auspices the institution is founded are 
poor in this world's goods, but they are earnest ; and you must see, 
that, by taking such a heretic as I am from the world's people, they 
have very different views from our evangelicals. 

Now, my dear friend, if you have any deposit of " filthy lucre " 
to make in the Upper Exchequer, I wish you to remit the same, 
for the benefit of Antioch College, through my hands, — more or 
less, thousands or hundreds, — and I will see that it is entered to 
your credit above. Do you know of any better chance for invest- 
ment? . . . 

Yours as ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

West Neavton, June 15, 1853. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — I should have written to you some time 
ago ; only I hoped to have something to send to you, and a friend 
to send it by. In both I have been, so far, disappointed : otherwise 
I should earlier have thanked you for your much-valued present of 
one hundred dollars, which I mean shall be better than a common 
monument of you ; not a dumb and barren one, but a living, radi- 
ating one, dififusing instruction and delight. I mean to expend it, 

26 



402 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

mainly at least, for pkrenological works, yours heading the list, and 
in such duplicates as will allow you to be speaking all the time to 
many persons. In the new college, I am to occupy (I dare not 
eay fill) the chair of Natural Theology. It is something of an 
advance (is it not?) to look outside the clerical ranks in America for 
the president of a college, where with the fewest exceptions, from 
time immemorial, not only have the clergy had a monopoly of this 
office, but the Orthodox clergy. I am inclined to think this is the 
first instance, in all the West, in which a layman has ever been 
elected to it. Succeed or not, I do not think it will be the last. 
The faculty has thi-ee clergymen and three laymen in it, besides 
one female professor, as it is to educate young ladies as well as 
young men ; and I intend to have it so arranged that the Sunday 
exercises of the chapel shall be performed alternately by the male 
members. In this way I hope to get something of philosophy, as 
weU as theology, before the minds of the youth who are bold enough 
to resort there. 

Mr. Mann left New England for the West early in 
September of this year. He was unable to dispose of his 
homestead, except temporarily; and therefore realized 
with less force than he otherwise might have done the 
fact that he was changing his home permanently. All 
was uncertain as to the future, except that an untried 
enterprise was before him, insuring great labors ; but he 
was animated by a strong hope that he should be able to 
put into action many long-cheriahed and favorite views. 
It was surely a virgin soil that his educational plough- 
share was to break, and his enthusiasm figured a fair 
prospect of success. 

His journey was not unattended with public evidences 
of sympathy from those who had concurred in the princi- 
ples that had actuated his Congressional career. At 
Portland (for he took a Northern route) , a deputation of 
friends, who had sympathized with his nomination by the 
Free-soil party to the office of Governor of Massachusetts, 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 403 

arrested him at the station to bid him a kindly farewell. 
Though he was peculiarly backward in seeking the sym- 
pathy he valued, he enjoyed the expression of it none the 
less when it was spontaneous and sincere. But when he 
parted with the last friend who accompanied, him on the 
way, and felt that he had cut loose from all further par- 
ticipation in scenes not only of honest triumph but of 
much wounded feeling, the strong man gave way, and he 
wept like a child. Massachusetts was not all he wished 
her to be, and that he had hoped she would prove ; but 
he had worked lovingly for her, and her very rocks and 
shores were dear to him. The friends who had been true 
to him, and the supposed friends who had deserted him, 
were remembered with almost equal tenderness ; but it 
was difficult to convince him that his place in their mem- 
ories would be kept green after he had passed away from 
their sight. When he arrived upon the new scene of 
labor, he threw himself, with all the ardor of his tempera- 
ment, into the enterprise he had undertaken ; for it seemed 
as if he was to make a new world : and it was only when 
the inconsiderate question was asked, " Which do you 
like best, the East or the West ? " that he allowed himself 
to dwell with acute pain upon what he had lost. 

"I must not think of my brain relations, ^^ he would 
sometimes say. " I shall realize the loss too much." 

Several of his near relatives were around him ; and the 
new home was gilded with a halo of hope, — hope of use- 
fulness and successful exertion. The poetry of the broad 
prairies, which to other hearts spoke only of desolation, 
was to his exalted state of mind, as he passed over them, 
freedom, — freedom from all that fettered or darkened 
the human soul through the agency of man. Were they 
not yet to be wrought ? Their future vegetation surely 
depended upon what seed was sown. He had been an 



404 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

eminently practical man ; but his dreams had always 
stood before him, and they were of the fruits of knowledge 
and the " liberty of the sons of God." How sadly these 
hopes of a serene and successful field of labor were disap- 
pointed, only those can ever know who were inspired by 
his enthusiasm to share them, and who felt the disappoint- 
ment with him. 

Several years after, when driving one day over one of 
those broad wastes where occasionally a solitary log-house 
showed that human interests were beginning to be linked 
with Nature, his companion remarked, " I should not like 
to be a pioneer." — " Are we not pioneers ?" he answered, 
not bitterly, but sadly ; for he had already been made to 
feel that the borders of civilization are, in their social 
aspects, but a short remove from barbarism. 

The ambitious brick towers of Antioch College were the 
first objects to be seen on approaching the spot ; and its 
unfinished aspect was symbolical of the unripe condition 
of all its affairs. Mr. Mann once tried to describe it by 
saying, that, " supposing creation had lately issued out of 
chaos, it might be about as late in the week as Wednes- 
day ! " It was situated on a table-land, which, two years 
previously, had been despoiled of a magnificent forest to 
make way for that source of Western wealth, — wheat. 
The stumps of the trees still remained standing at the 
very threshold of the college. Eastern energy, starting 
upon the basis of Western promises, had projected it thus 
far into being ; but its location was too near Slave-land 
not to feel the influence of its tardy fulfilments of all pur- 
poses. There was not even any one standing ready to re- 
ceive the new president, except one of his own relatives who 
had arrived three days before him. No house had been 
built for his accommodation, as had been promised ; nor 
had he received any intimation of the fact. No provision 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 405 

had even been made for a temporary residence of ten 
persons; but, happily, a large boarding-house, whose 
summer residents had left but a few weeks before, was by 
much persuasion opened to him at the moment. There 
were not many comforts in it : but he and his friends were 
strung up to a high tension of nervous energy, and con- 
tempt of trifles, having been forewarned, by one who 
knew something of Western life, that " the change from 
the quiet comforts of a New-England home would be found 
a matter both for laughter and for tears ; " and the party 
took possession of the deserted rooms, which they were 
allowed to arrange for themselves, and which, by dint of 
a few old stoves, were made habitable for a fall resi- 
dence. The college-buildings were far from being com- 
pleted ; and it was only by means of the most strenuous 
exertions, even by sabbath-day labors, that the chapel 
was made ready for the reception of the large number of 
guests who were expected to be present on the day of in- 
auguration. The committee did not dare to proclaim the 
day too extensively ; for it was feared that there were not 
accommodations enough in the village for so large a com- 
pany as would probably come. But, in spite of their 
caution, when the day came, three thousand persons 
assembled, many of whom brought comforters and provi- 
sions, and slept in their carriages and carioles. Only one 
boarding-house belonging to the college-buildings, and 
designed for the accommodation of the students, was even 
partially completed ; and the dining-hall of this was still 
to be made, except the framework. Boards were laid 
upon joists for the dinner-party of the day. One hundred 
and fifty students entered on the afternoon of the inaugura- 
tion ceremony. The boards were swept, and the examina- 
tion-papers laid upon them : and these alternate ceremonies 
of eating and examining went on for two or three days ; and 



406 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

the company of young people took possession of the unfin- 
ished building, as far as windows were glazed and doors 
hung, a partition having been thrown up in the middle of 
it to divide the young men from the maidens, and two of 
the professors taking up their abode in the building pre- 
vious to the occupation of Mr. Mann, who was to take 
possession of certain rooms in it as soon as they were in 
habitable condition. 

The classes were opened at once, and the preparatory 
school commenced, the whole corps of professors throwing 
themselves into it. Out of the whole mass of applicants, 
representing every stage of human ignorance, eight were 
found qualified upon the whole, though with some con- 
ditions, to form a freshman-class. The rest, old and 
young, married and unmarried, some of them ministers 
who had given up their parishes to take a college course 
of study, were obliged to drop into the preparatory school, 
simple as were its requisitions. The teaching, fortunately, 
was of a high order ; the teaching corps invincible in reso- 
lution, patient, sympathizing with the universal aspiration, 
while lamenting the low stage of intellectual development; 
and the professors' corps, aided by a few intelligent and 
well-educated young ladies from the East, who went out 
prepared to take a college course, and before whom stood 
in amazement men of twice their age as humble pupils, 
soon evoked some order out of the chaos. 

It was a wonderful spectacle then, — and grows more 
wonderful when regarded from a distant period of time, 
— the enthusiasm of those young people, who kept to- 
gether under circumstances that might excuse almost any 
lapse from resolution to endure privations. It was long 
before the building was put into comfortable order. It 
was a year before any provision was made to furnish fresh 
water to the students, who were obliged to walk a quarter 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 407 

of a mile with their pitchers to procure a draught of the clear 
article ; all the water furnished being brought from a dis- 
tance, and poured into a huge vat of ten feet diameter, which 
stood upon a raised platform near the door of the Ladies' 
Hall. The water was often carted to it in cast-off oil-bar- 
rels that had been superficially cleansed ; the hydraulic 
rams that originally supplied the vat having got out of or- 
der, with no Yankee promptness at hand to repair injuries. 

The young ladies were obliged to fill their own bed- 
room pitchers at this vat, no domestic service being allowed 
by the superintendent. Early one morning, in the ensuing 
winter, a stranger who was visiting the institution, and 
had risen betimes to take the cars, found a delicate young 
lady struggling with a huge stream that was pouring from 
the vat. She had inadvertently pulled out the faucet; 
and knowing that the supply of water for all purposes, 
cooking included, would be lost if she did not replace it, 
was endeavoring to do so, standing upon the wet snow, 
and drenched to the skin by the stream. He rescued her 
from it ; but she was ill for a long time in consequence 
of the wetting. Mr. Mann often ascended the ladder, to 
ascertain, by probing the vat with his cane, how much 
gravel was not held in solution. 

A wealthy gentleman m the neighborhood, who owned 
several hundred springs of delicious water oozing from 
the brink of a gorge in the vicinity, and but one of which 
he could use himself, had loaned the use of one for the 
two previous years of college-building ; but no entreaties 
could induce him to lend, rent, or sell the use of it any 
longer. 

The next year, another person interested in the college 
purchased a distant tract of the gorge containing a spring 
of water, and it was brought up by hydraulic rams. 

No appropriation was made for digging wells, either 



408 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

for the college or the college manse, for many years ; and 
then the enterprise only partially succeeded. To finish 
the history of the water question, which may be taken as 
a representative one of much of the spirit that actuated 
the community : the pipes for these rams had to be laid 
partially under another person's territory ; and, though 
they interfered in no way with the tillage or pasturage of 
the same, the owner, being disaffected because he could 
not on one occasion make some money out of the col- 
lege, threatened to cut them off. This calamity, however, 
was averted by much negotiation. 

Many cold weeks elapsed, after the opening of the 
college on the 5th of October, before the stoves arrived 
which were to warm either the main college-building or 
the close dormitories of the students (ventilation having 
been entirely ignored in the structure). A change of 
plan in the superintendent's mind in regard to the stoves 
caused this delay. Some of the professors took possession 
of their apartments in the college-building before the 
plaster was dry, while it was still impossible to make a 
fire ; thereby incurring maladies, which, in one instance 
at least, promised to be life-long. There was no remedy ; 
for the village did not afford accommodations for the 
sudden influx of population. 

Mr. Mann was unable to take possession of his apart- 
ments for many weeks after the opening of the college ; 
for his household effects had been thj-own in a storm 
upon some portion of the shore of Lake Erie not con-, 
nected with any railroad, and were long supposed, indeed, 
to have gone to the bottom. When they were at last 
found, the carpets for the college-parlors, one of which 
the president was to inhabit, still remained untouched, till 
the ladies of the faculty unrolled and cut them out, and 
put them down ; and they were also obliged, to stand 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 409 

sentinels over their boxes of furniture out of doors, 
hatchet and screw-driver in hand, waiting for the ap- 
pearance of some friendly professor or other dignitary 
to open them, no workmen being spared from the hur- 
ried preparations to aid in such small matters. The 
amiable superintendent decreed that no domestic's broom 
or mop should ever touch the stairs that led to the 
president's apartments ; and said ladies took turns dur- 
ing that year in making them passable, for their own 
credit's sake, and for that of the institution. All offers 
made by the lady teachers to arrange the tables tastefully, 
with a view of cultivating good manners, were rejected by 
the superintendent and the stewardess as an invidious 
criticism upon themselves. It was even difficult to intro- 
duce the refinement of table-napkins, a set of which was 
presented by a friend. It was necessary to make a by- 
law to oblige the students to sit at table half an hour, such 
were their rough and uncultured habits. These things, 
however, were not to be allowed to daunt pioneers. The 
question sometimes came up, " Shall we laugh, or shall 
we cry ? " The verdict was uniformly in favor of the 
former, when the subject was looked upon merely as 
a matter of personal comfort ; but it was painful to 
Mr. Mann to be thwarted in his pleasant plans for even 
the outward improvement of his new disciples. Many 
projects were entertained of future dramas of " Antioch 
in the Bud ; " but too sad associations linger around it 
now for the fulfilment of such playful threats. 

Mr. Mann persisted in presiding over the commons 
table, hoping by his presence to give a better tone to the 
manners of the young people, which, by all indications, 
would otherwise have disfigured the establishment. But 
no power to ameliorate the annoyances that all felt was 



410 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

given him by the acting superintendent, who soon became 
disaffected because not allowed by the faculty to rule 
the scholastic as well as the culinary department. One 
fruit of this disaffection was a cessation of work upon the 
college manse for several months. 

During that year, Mr. Mann devoted much time to the 
cure of many habits in the students common to Western 
society, among which the indiscriminate use of tobacco 
was very prominent, even in boys of twelve years of age. 
Mr. Mann has been thought unduly severe upon this sub- 
ject ; which is not surprising, when we consider that it is 
a point of minor morals not yet recognized by the world 
in general. But perhaps even such critics would have 
sympathized with him there ; for recitation-rooms and 
even parlors were rendered almost uninhabitable by the 
vile accompaniments of chewing and smoking. For sev- 
eral months, he spent every evening he could command 
in using his moral and persuasive influence to induce the 
students to renounce the practice ; and succeeded so far, 
that, before the end of the first college-year, there were 
but three students who had not with apparent willingness 
signed a pledge to discontinue it, and to use their influ- 
ence to make others do likewise. In some cases, the 
reform was very striking ; for young men who had been 
addicted to the habit from youth up were changed from 
sallow, nerveless, irritable, stupid individuals, painful to 
behold, to fair, strong, cheerful seekers after knowledge 
and happiness. One young man, thus redeemed from 
apparent ruin, came to Mr. Mann every day, for two or 
three weeks, to report his resolution held since the day 
previous, hoping to achieve his emancipation by such 
slow stages ; and every day received the encouragement 
and sympathy requisite to carry him on, till at last he 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 411 

announced himself able as well as willing to sign the 
pledge. 

He appealed to the common sense of some, to the 
moral sense of others. Some who came into the class- 
rooms ragged, and pleading poverty, he ridiculed, assuring 
them that the money saved would at least pay for mend- 
ing the coat-sleeve or the shirt-bosom. Some he pleaded 
with as fathers do with their erring children. But these 
admonitions were all private ; for he always avoided de- 
stroying self-respect by public fault-finding, if possible. 
The same three who refused were finally ejected from the 
institution on account of the kindred vice of drunkenness. 
New students brought new cases to deal with ; but, when 
public opinion was on the right side, half the battle was 
gained. 

In view of the graver trials that came after, it would 
seem trivial to mention many which wore upon his nerves 
at that time. But he considered it a matter of great im- 
portance to cultivate the manners as well as the minds of 
the young people around him. His previous plans had 
been, to afford in his own house the proprieties and even 
elegances of social culture to those who had never en- 
joyed them elsewhere ; but he was obliged to do the best 
he could with what appliances were at hand. His pres- 
ence insured order and decency at the public tables ; and 
for this end he continued to deprive himself and family, 
for the first year, of the luxury of any private life, a 
measure of which he might have enjoyed through the 
privilege of a private table. 

But he could not prevent the Ohio pigs from walking 
through the dining-room, as there were no fences around 
the college-buildings, no doors to the hall, and no ap- 
pointed homes for the animals. Water stood over shoes 
between the main college-building and the dining-hall 



412 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

(where there is a covered arcade in the picture) , so deep 
that boards floated on it. One day a professor (a lady) 
was arrested, on her entrance to the hail, by a hog of 
unusual dimensions, wliich had made his watery bed 
where a doorstep should have been. She looked at it in 
dismay a moment, and then, being light of foot, tripped 
over it as if it had been a bridge, and sprang over a board 
which had been inserted where the door should have 
been hung, the board having been placed there by some 
friendly hand to prevent the intrusion of living bridges. 

The ladies of the faculty and teaching corps arranged 
themselves in fine linen and gloves when Mr. Mann held 
levees in the parlors of the only liall then erected, hoping 
to suggest the refinement of re-arranging the hair, taking 
off the apron, and putting on a clean collar, for such occa- 
sions ; and these improvements did grow, so that, by the 
time he could hold levees in the college manse, they pre- 
sented the agreeable spectacle of a company of ladies and 
gentlemen in becoming dress and clean shoes. In the 
early college-days, when the whole area of twenty acres 
was one vast quagmire of clayey soil, in which plank 
walks sank below the surface, and in rainy weather floated 
upon it, this last refinement was simply impossible. It 
was necessary, in walking, to arm one's self with a shingle 
or other implement, to remove the mass which adhered 
to the shoe when it accumulated sufficiently to prevent 
farther locomotion. 

In the later days, strangers often asked, with a sem- 
blance of incredulity, " Do you mean to tell me that these 
intelligent, agreeable, lovely young people are students 
of the college ? " Sucli was the effect of culture when the 
mind and heart were wakened to receive it. 

Twice Mr. Mann's garden was stocked with valuable 
fruit from the East, and twice destroyed by cattle and pigs 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 413 

for want of enclosure : and, to the last days of his resi- 
dence, the unsightly heap of broken brick, mortar, and 
stone, lay untouched before his door ; but he had 
learned to look over it. It was impossible to aslc for ap- 
propriations for such purposes, wlien it was difficult to 
obtain them for the commissariat of the boarding-liouse ; 
and his own loose moneys, and all the contributions he 
could gather, were devoted to the relief of indigent stu- 
dents. A friend from Massachusetts, who visited him, 
wrote word, after his return, that he found every thing at 
home painfully neat. 

Many serious difficulties soon arose in regard to the 
appointment of teachers, who were selected by the su- 
perintendent without consultation with the president. 
Finances failed; and then a sufficient number could not 
be employed, for want of money to pay them. This threw 
too great burdens on the few. Some failed for want of 
adaptation to the places they were called to fill : jeal- 
ousies were fostered among others. The disaffection of 
the superintendent still delayed the building of tlie college 
manse: and his uncomfortable quarters, the self-denial he 
practised about personal comforts (for only in the privacy 
of his own bed-chamber would he partake of a little food 
that he could digest, furtively prepared in an inconve- 
nient manner), the absorption of every moment of his 
time (for no waking hour was his own), and the anxiety he 
began to feel lest the institution would become bankrupt, 
proved too much for Mr. Mann ; and, towards the end of 
the first year, he was laid upon a bed of suffering, from 
which only his iron resolution finally roused him ; and he 
actually did remain upon his feet until vacation came, 
thus rendering the subsequent prostration still more 
fearful. 

The question may naturally be asked here, " Could not 



414 LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN. 

the president of the institution regulate the preparation of 
food upon his own table, even if it stood in the Commons' 
Hall ? " The answer is, that the raiv democratic principle, 
if the expression may be allowed, is very levelling in the 
regions of border civilization. He saw the jealousy en- 
tertained of men of Eastern culture by the rough denizens 
of the prairies, and knew that it was fed in this particular 
instance by the personal ill-will of the superintendent. 
He constantly feared a revolt in the dining-room, where 
all his plans were systematically thwarted ; and it is but an 
additional proof of the enthusiasm of his young aspirants 
for knowledge that such a revolt did not take place, con- 
sidering all the discomforts. The seats at the tables 
were round, four-legged stools; and Mr. Mann would not 
have a chair for himself, even after some ladies of the 
teaching corps ventured upon that innovation for their own 
accommodation and at their own expense. No one there, 
who estimated his services even approximately, can now 
review the history of these petty yet serious evils without 
a measure of indignation that baffles speech. The stu- 
dents of that period, who knew the whole, utter it with 
tongues of fire ; but he never uttered a word of complaint, 
or would allow it in his hearing. " I can endure any thing 
for these young "people," he would say. At last, others 
were convinced that only heroic measures could avail; 
and friends who advanced moneys, with no securities but 
the banks of faith and hope, stopped supplies until the 
obnoxious superintendent was dismissed. He did not fail, 
however, to infuse his spirit into others who succeeded, 
making dissatisfaction a tradition . He had much influence, 
having been largely concerned in getting up the institu- 
tion. His successors, happily, were less powerful to con- 
tend with the giant will that would endure all things for 
the noble ends he sought. Mr. Mann's mode of resist- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 415 

ance, however, was chiefly to disarm hostile influences as 
well as to endure. 

After one occasion of exhausting fatigue, Mr, Mann 
was himself startled, and the friends who were with him 
painfully shocked, by a partial paralysis of speech, which 
made him utter words inadvertently, and so irrelevant that 
they struck his own ear. He was never reminded of it by 
others, and never referred to it himself, even to those who 
administered relief to him at the time ; but the sword of 
Damocles that hung over him was ever visible to the eyes 
that knew and loved him best. 

After his removal to a private residence, he had 
some repose ; for he was exempt from the unceasing 
hum and confusion of a closely packed building : but all 
responsibility for the discipline of the institution re- 
mained in his hands, and of this he could only be relieved 
by the occasional fortunate chance of coadjutors who 
could manage their own departments without friction. 
In such an institution, a necessary officer is a matron 
whose duties are combined neither with those of house- 
keeper nor teacher; but for this there never were funds 
enough, and constant difficulties occurred and recurred. 
A mother's parlor, with the mother in it ready for all exi- 
gencies, should be represented, and the illusion should be 
entire, in a house filled with young ladies of all ages 
needing motherly suggestions and care. But that aid 
was denied him to the end by circumstances beyond his 
control. Even in his little cabinet, perfect unanimity did 
not exist, nor even unalloyed good feeling. But the 
power to form the cabinet was not given to him ; and he 
had to wait for the day when the evils consequent upon 
this state of things should work themselves off, and 
when all would come to look as he did upon the great 
importance of their charge, rather than upon their own 



416 LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 

private interest and ambition. Tliose who looked on and 
saw what he encountered, and what he bore patiently and 
hopefully, and how self-forgettingiy and bravely he rose 
above all obstacles ; how radiant his countenance was 
when he saw, that, in spite of all difficulties, the young 
people improved, and responded genially to his touch, — 
were inspired also to hope every thing, and fear nothing, 
and dwell only upon the great issues involved in the 
marked progress of several hundred aspiring youth, ani- 
mated to intense enthusiasm by the magnetism of his 
presence and love : for he moved amongst them like a 
father among his children, most ready to spend his time 
and energies with the least hopeful. He truly believed that 
the germ of every thing good was to be found in each 
one, and that this only needed the sun of culture to grow 
and blossom, and bear fruit. All the previous training 
and experience of his life were brought into requisition 
to meet the demand ; and he could hardly understand why 
all others did not feel as willing to offer themselves a sac- 
rifice to the work as he did. He had hoped that only 
the devotion and not the sacrifice of any one would be 
required ; for he had no question, wheji he undertook the 
charge of the institution, that means would be furnished 
to carry it on. When he found that these were not at 
hand, his only thought was to stand in the breach till 
succor came. He had expected to encounter ignorance in 
the greater portion of the Christian denomination, which 
liad only of late thoiight worldly knowledge consistent 
with religion, and, like the Methodists of old, waited for 
" a call " before they attempted to instruct others ; but a 
few noble and cultured minds among them had made him 
feel that the idea of true religious freedom had dawned 
upon them, and was destined to become a great and shin- 
ing light. It was to this idea that he attached himself, 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 417 

and openly and freely gave his allegiance. That the 
light did not come more rapidly out of the present dark- 
ness, he mourned over as truly as any man : but he knew 
that the bud was grafted upon thrifty stocks ; and, when 
he was obliged to withdraw his respect from the fathers, 
he did not lose his confidence in the sons and daughters, 
but recognized in them so clear an acceptance of the 
great truth involved in the principles of toleration and 
free thought, that he loved to identify himself with the 
noble platform to the very last. 

Perhaps no man, brought up in the very hot-bed of 
intolerance and spiritual pride, ever so utterly renounced 
every vestige of both. We sometimes see even the freest 
thinkers — those who have helped to break the bonds of 
others — as intolerant of difference of opinion in those 
whom they would fain lead as were the bigots from whom 
they broke away. But Mr. Mann was too conscious of 
this tendency in mankind to trust himself to indoctrinate 
others. He confined himself to clearing away the obstruc- 
tions to free thought, and was not afraid to trust truth to 
the pure in heart, and to the intellectual integrity of those 
who sought it humbly. He has been called distrustful 
of men ; but he was not distrustful of human nature, 
although he looked carefully after the motives of special 
people. He thought human nature needed educating, 
and had been much maligned ; and that it was only where 
circumstances had cultivated the earthly side of it unduly 
that the divine element was temporarily obscured. Educa- 
tion was, in his view, a word of far higher import than 
that popularly given to it. Its function was to call out 
from within all that was divinely planted there in the 
proportions requisite to make a noble being. He knew 
that man could not create in others what God had not 
created ; but he had a generous and noble faith in the 

27 



418 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

indefinite capacities of the human race for improvement. 
Tlie fact of the humanity was all-sufficient to call out his 
efibrts for the culture of any of God's children ; but in 
the aspiring youth of our Great West he saw with pro- 
phetic eye a glorious promise, whose fulfilment bid fair 
to release society from the bondage of error. The grand 
sweep of the horizon enlarged his own sense of power ; 
and he unconsciously transplanted his own expanded 
thought into the breast of every one he saw intent upon 
the search after knowledge. 

Many laughable incidents, growing out of the primitive 
simplicity of log-cabin life at the West, made the Eastern 
residents in this hitherto uncultured region realize the 
difference between the two states of society. Mr. Mann, 
in his Western lecturing tours, had often slept in the one 
apartment of a log-cabin (the owner worth, perhaps, a 
hundred thousand dollars) in which a row of beds were 
turned down at night to accommodate the household, 
guest and all : therefore he was not alarmed wlien a very 
demure young lady — not particularly young, but a 
student of the college — came to make the request that 
she might make up a bed on the floor of her apartment for 
her brother-in-law, who had come to visit her. Mr. Mann 
reminded her of the regulation, that no gentleman, except 
the fathers of the students, should go into the dormitory 
halls of the young ladies' department, even to make a 
passing call. She said she knew that was a regulation, 
but thought the case of a brother-in-law might be an ex- 
ception. Without hurting her feelings, he made her 
understand that such customs, although allowable under 
the sanction of parental presence in homes, would not 
answer in an institution of learning, where the discretion 
of young people could not always be trusted, however 
much their goodness might be confided in. But these 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 419 

customs often gave him trouble. An old gentleman, who 
was an itinerant preacher, brought two of his daughters 
to him, and said they were afraid to be left at home alone 
since the death of their mother ; and so he brought them 
to the college, which was " as cheap a place as any other, 
and girls were not of much account any way." The girls 
were as uncultured as one might expect from such a view 
of the subject. They conversed in the precise phraseology 
of Aunt Dinah in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," which Mr. Mann 
did not know till then to be the vernacular of the West 
as well as of the South. But they knew how to read, 
and had begun to learn to write ; and they were docile, 
and could easily have been managed. The father, how- 
ever, was a more difficult subject. He often came to visit 
his daughters (having shut up his house), and would 
bring to their chamber hampers of mince-pies, roast turkey, 
&c., and stay a week or two. This was submitted to for 
a while, although he necessarily turned his daughters out 
of their narrow bed to seek sleeping-places for themselves 
in other students' rooms, or on the floor. But at last he 
brought a cousin to stay with him ; and, when the young 
gentleman appeared, the occasion was seized for eai-nest 
remonstrance and prohibition. The old preacher was 
sore offended, and left with his daughters at once. 

On one occasion, during a short vacation, a party of 
gay young ladies thought they would amuse themselves 
by visiting a fellow-student, a young man, who was at the 
time engaged in a neighboring town in keeping a district 
school, which he had playfully invited them to come and 
see. The president was absent; and, when they applied 
for permission to visit a friend for a few days, their plans 
were not so thoroughly investigated as they would have 
been by his vigilant care ; and a delegated permission was 
granted, on the ground that he always took pleasure in 



420 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

promoting innocent recreations at such times, and, indeed, 
took pains to provide entertainment. The young ladies 
proceeded on their foolish frolic ; but, unluckily, the 
gentleman had also taken a few days' vacation, and was 
not to be found. They knew no one else in the place, and 
had relied upon him to find an abode during their stay ; 
and, as they suddenly realized the ludicrousness of their 
position, they wandered about the precincts till picked up 
by another fellow-student residing on a neighboring farm, 
who took tliem home, and entertained them until the even- 
ing train arrived. They returned under cover of the 
shades, and disposed of themselves among their friends 
in the village for a few days, too much mortified to re- 
appear at their boarding-house, and afraid of being found 
out and laughed at. They did not escape, however ; and 
they were brought to tears and dismay by the exhortation 
they received upon the subject of proprieties. 

Another party of young people, innocent of any design 
to infringe these same proprieties, had laid all their 
plans, on a similar occasion, to spend a few weeks ram- 
bling about the country, and camping out ; but a word 
of appeal from Mr. Mann to consider what might be the 
effect on the public mind of so wild an expedition from a 
college surrounded by enemies and persecutors, who would 
be glad of an occasion to find fault, deterred them at once. 
In his assumed character of parent, he could not sanction 
that which, under other circumstances, might have been 
perfectly unobjectionable. The cheerfulness with which 
the students also gave up dancing as a recreation — a 
resource which would have been healtliful as well as 
hilarious, and which Mr. Mann approved when pursued 
under proper regulations — showed how genuine was his 
influence over them. This amusement is a source of so 
much evil among the uncultivated, that a large proportion 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 421 

of the religious people of the Western communities looked 
upon it with a prejudice that would have induced them 
to remove their children from an institution where it was 
allowed ; and, on the ground that it would deprive many 
of their companions of the advantages of education, it was 
cheerfully given up. After a few years, however, tliey 
were allowed to accept invitations to private houses where 
dancing occurred at seasonable hours. 

In view of tlie various discomforts attending the prema- 
ture opening of the college and its boarding-house, Mr. 
Mann sometimes allowed students to board in the village. 
He permitted it only in individual cases, and then under 
the restriction, that they should board in no family whose 
heads would not pledge themselves not to take young 
men and maidens together ; for this would almost insure 
intimacies which might result in connections for life : and 
he wished to throw guards around the young ladies, which 
should preclude any precipitate steps of this kind, as care- 
ful parents would do. In his Inaugural Address, he had 
fairly met the question of the probability that marriages 
would frequently grow out of the intimacies of college- 
life ; but there was a by-law of the institution to the effect 
that they should not take place there. The pledge given 
by housekeepers was violated in one or two instances ; but 
they were parents who had daughters, and were foolish 
enough to take young men to board, and were alone 
responsible when their children chose to be married rather 
than to pursue their college education to the end. When 
Mr. Mann was consulted by the regents of another uni- 
versity at the West, in which there was a question of 
admitting both sexes, he advised against it, because there 
was to be no college-family, no superintendence of any 
description, but the young people were to seek their 
homes at their discretion in a city where no eye could be 



422 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

held over them. He considered the moral dangers to 
impulsive youth so great, when left without parental 
or other supervision, that he thought it better to forego 
the literary education than to incur them. 

Enemies slandered the institution, and the slanders 
doubtless spread where the refutations have not always 
followed them ; but no one conversant with the daily 
life and walk of Antioch College can deny that the purity 
and high tone of its morals and manners, in both depart- 
ments, were unequalled by those of any other known insti- 
tution. There are many colleges at the West, in whose 
neighborhood schools for young ladies have sprung up, 
in order that the services of teachers and professors in 
the former may be made available in the latter ; and in 
such cases there have always been regulations prohibiting 
any intercourse whatever between the two. But it is the 
universal testimony of those acquainted with the subject, 
that loss of reputation, and even of character, are not 
unfrequent in such places, growing out of clandestine 
correspondences and meetings. Mr. Mann thought the 
monkish error of repressing natural sentiments should be 
swept away with other errors of the same nature, and a 
generous culture should enlist them in the interests of 
purity. Young people are thoughtless rather than vi- 
cious ; and it is cruel to put them into circumstances 
where they can learn wisdom only from a fatal experi- 
ence. Even at Oberlin, as was testified to not only by 
pupils, but by teachers of the institution afterwards em- 
ployed at Antioch, the students, though dining at tho 
same tables, were not allowed to speak at meal-times. 
At Antioch College, the dining-hall, which was, as at 
Oberlin, the commons of both sexes, was a charming 
scene of social enjoyment and innocent hilarity, — a scene 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 423 

which Mr. Maim specially enjoyed for its beneficent in- 
fluences upon manners and happiness. On Thanksgiv- 
ing days he liked to be a guest of this large family, which 
he regarded with true parental affection. The spoiler 
entered it more than once, and tried to alienate the affec- 
tions of his students, but with very slight success. Dis- 
appointed ambition and disappointed greed did succeed 
in alienating the confidence of the Western public to a 
great degree : hence the failure of all their flattering 
promises to sustain the institution, which they might 
have done with perfect ease if deposed professors, and 
disappointed sharpers, and religious bigotry, had not 
aspersed it. 

Mr. Mann was not the only individual who went into 
this enterprise with lofty aims and liberal and disinter- 
ested views, certainly with a very creditable degree of 
them : but only two or three had had sufficient experi- 
ence even to share all his views, or form a just conception 
of what his purposes were ; and a far different spirit ani- 
mated others with whom its destiny was involved, — not 
inextricably, perhaps, for it had already begun to slough 
off extraneous matter before he was cut off from it ; but 
at what a cost that was done, only those who were kindled 
by his enthusiasm, and who acted with him, know, or 
ever can know, adequately. 

I would dwell a little longer upon one feature of this 
institution which interested Mr. Mann as deeply in it as 
its unsectarian basis. Colleges for women, or rather col- 
leges frequented by women as well as by men, presented 
some objections at first view, which had their foundation 
in a delicate appreciation of feminine character. He 
had at one time felt them himself ; but his experience of 
the joint education in the Massachusetts Normal schools, 
two of which had this feature, had dispelled that doubt, 



424 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

ill view of the advantages to be gained. He had never 
been pleased with any desire on woman's part to shine in 
public ; but it was his opinion that the divinely appointed 
mission of woman is to teach, and it was his wish to 
introduce her into every department of instruction as soon 
as it could be done with good effect. He had watched 
teaching long enough to know that woman's teaching, 
other things being equal, is more patient, persistent, 
and thorough than man's ; and that to equal intellectual 
advantages, that of moral culture, which should never 
be divorced from these, is more surely added thereby ; 
and that this grows out of the domestic traits, which 
are not marred by this use, but only thus directed to 
the noblest ends. Nor does it interfere in any degree 
with the peculiarly appointed sphere of woman. She is 
better fitted for tlie duties of wife and mother for having 
first used her faculties in imparting knowledge under 
circumstances that are free from distracting cares. He 
had no desire to shut out men from the enjoyment of the 
same privilege ; but he hoped, by the union of the two in 
the vocation of teaching, to annihilate as it were, cer- 
tainly to banish, all brutalities of growtli in young men, 
and frivolities in young women, and this without check- 
ing the hilarity or interfering with the simplicity of 
youth. He was rewarded signally by success, so far as 
he had the opportunity to test his views. 

He knew that the preparation for such change must be 
very gradual ; for there were as yet but few women to be 
found capable of filling the higher walks of instruction. 
The power to do it had been gained, previously to the es- 
tablishment of Normal schools, only by unaided practice, 
which sacrifices many victims in the process. He had 
the satisfaction of placing in professorships in Antioch 
College two ladies, who, in addition to other opportuni- 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 425 

ties of culture, had enjoyed the advantages of thorough 
training, first as pupils, and then as teachers, in the best 
Normal schools of Massachusetts ; thus connecting his 
early and his later labors. 

After restoring the common school to its full function, 
as conceived by its founders, or its discoverers, as he 
called them, it remained for him to connect it by an elec- 
tric chain with that advanced educational course repre- 
sented by the college or university, and which wields such 
mighty influence over society by its prestige. Indeed, he 
had been able to add the culture of a later period of time 
to that original conception whose principle shone so 
purely to the minds of the early fathers, that no advance 
upon that was possible, — principles having nothing to do 
with time, and often gleaming through a dark age as a 
prophecy of the future. He also felt that college educa- 
tion itself was to take a broader and higher stand than 
the old scholastic method. No link of that chain of con- 
nection was wanting in his mind. The only obstacle to 
the perfecting of his early work had been the want of 
thorough and complete scholars to carry it on. He 
wished accomplished men and women to have the charge 
of Normal-school training, that the instruction in them 
might fit teachers who could meet every requirement 
of society : but the higher institutions of learning had 
showed little interest in the work ; and, as long as that 
was the case, it would necessarily be of an inferior quality. 
One year's course at a Normal school did not prepare 
teachers, who entered it ignorant, to go into the high 
schools, and train young men for college. He wished 
graduates of the colleges to take such lively interest in 
educational work as to add the Normal-school training 
to their other acquirements, and make of it a profession, 
like law, medicine, and theology. He hoped, in process 



426 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

of time, to add such a department to Aiitioch College 
itself; making the preparatory school of the college a 
model school, after the pattern of that which is an 
integral element at present of all good Normal schools 
proper. The preparatory school of Antioch College 
never proved to be what he wished it to be, simply be- 
cause he could not command any one to superintend it 
aright. Its first principal could not speak or write the 
English language correctly ; and no one who ever took 
hold of it understood discipline in his sense of the word. 
His hands were tied in that as well as in other directions, 
as long as the institution was dependent upon the com- 
munity in which it was located. All this he hoped to rem- 
edy, if it could be set upon an independent basis, and be 
governed by intelligent men. The Western trustees had 
good will ; but most of them had not a conception of the 
needs or the functions of an institution of learning. They 
were supposed to hold the purse-strings ; and if they had 
been content to do that, and to let better educated men 
do the rest, Mr. Mann could have accomplished thrice 
what he was able to do with all the drawbacks in his 
way. 

The duties of one of his lady professors included instruc- 
tion in a variety of branches ; and her experience as 
assistant teacher in a Normal school enabled her to be a 
very great aid in arranging the general programme of 
studies. The other took the chair of mathematics, after 
the dismissal of the original occupant, and taught its 
highest branches without book in hand, and in a manner 
tliat was pronounced unsurpassed by those who were 
conversant with our first American institutions ; for she 
united to an entire comprehension of her subject the 
finest power of imparting that comprehension to others. 
In all feminine traits of character, this lady was as rare 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 427 

as in her intellectual cultivation. Her native grace of 
manner imparted instruction in beauty as it radiates from 
a flower, when she stood before her classes solving the 
most difficult problems as if she had discovered them, and 
as if books had not yet been invented. Mr. Mann knew 
this need not be a remarkable case, and that the few 
instances in which women have attained eminence in the 
learned world need not be remarkable cases ; that they 
were not due to original genius so much as to happy 
opportunity, such as he meant to multiply and offer to 
the many. 

In the early settlement of States in this country, it is 
impossible to diffuse educational advantages of the highest 
kind very widely. The pioneers, though usually men of 
energy who go from cultivated communities, are not often 
men of literary culture ; and therefore the home-life is not 
so cultivated a one as a republic needs. The next gene- 
ration is still less cultivated, of course ; and the young 
people must be sent from home to secure education, or go 
without it. The question is not, therefore, whether to be 
educated away from the restraints of parental care is the 
best thing, theoretically, for daughters, but whether they 
shall have instruction at all. Since a university in every 
village, as suggested by Thoreau, is not practicable or 
possible in the present condition of the world's learning or 
with the present value placed upon education, the impor- 
tant point is to furnish the best kind of institutions, — those 
most nearly resembling families, — as well as seats of 
learning, and where there is a concentration of learned 
forces. Every thing must be provided for, — not only 
instruction, but a supervision that partakes of the parental 
character, and a degree of freedom compatible with the 
preservation of refinement, or the inculcation of it when 
found wanting. In American society, the freedom of in- 



428 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

tercoiirse between the young has ever been found com- 
patible with virtue, in striking contrast to the system of 
repression that exists in the older societies of the world, 
even of modern Europe. 

Such was the fair temple of Learning that stood before 
Mr. Mann's inward vision. He could see all the elements 
of it ; and he felt confident that he could combine them 
aright, if the means were only in his hands. 

To most of the young women who frequented Antioch 
College, intellectual life was a new life. In Eastern com- 
munities, in the average of public schools, especially in 
the country, the superiority of scholarship is imquestion- 
ably on the side of girls. Evidence of this was found 
in the statistics of the Normal schools. It was precisely 
the contrary at the West. In many cases, tliey had been 
absolutely cut off from instruction. There was no com- 
mon stock of knowledge. They did not even know the 
history of the settlement of the country by white men. 
Of the Pilgrim Fathers many had never heard. Still less 
had they had access to that literary culture so delightful 
to woman. An occasional exception only made this more 
striking. One family from Indiana had been so remote 
from schools, that the daughters, who were deficient in 
technical education of all sorts, had been furnished with 
books of fine quality by their father, a man of taste and 
talent, though of limited education ; and had so fructified 
in mind by this privilege, that they immediately took high 
rank as superior minds in the college by their written 
essays, so misspelled that they could hardly be deciphered ; 
the words, indeed, often running together to the length 
of half a line. 

Many found that within themselves which they had not 
dreamed to exist; and their enthusiasm became equal to 
the joyfulness of the discovery. It is astonishing how 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 429 

rapidly young people ripen under favorable circumstances ; 
and they carried a new life back to the homes from which 
they had come. Nor did the accurate knowledge gained 
by close and systematic study, and by intercourse with 
other minds, come amiss or unneeded to many to whom 
intellectual life was not wholly new. The general defect 
in woman's education is its want of systematic precision. 
In the best educated, the taste is often cultivated while 
the logical powers are neglected ; and critical knowledge 
is left to what are called the "liberally educated," which 
means the college-educated. The Normal schools are the 
only public institutions, probably, where women have found 
this want supplied. The model schools for practice, un- 
der experienced teachers, have been powerful auxiliaries 
to this end ; for no acquirements can be so thoroughly 
tested in any other way as by teaching them. To teach 
well, one must learn accurately ; and it has been well said 
that " no one can teach well who does not teach out of a 
mine." The critical examinations of Antioch College 
also made accurate knowledge indispensable. 

Mr. Mann wished to have as much of his teaching force 
as possible of the best quality of Normal-school pupils. 
The superiority of their work was a constant subject of 
gratification to him. He was particularly pleased on one 
occasion when he heard the services of a young lady 
spoken of who was employed as assistant to the teacher 
of music, himself a pupil of Lowell Mason, the distin- 
guished teacher of vocal music in Massachusetts. The 
young lady taught the piano ; and the peculiarity of her 
instruction was not only its quality, but the fact that she 
not only gave the lessons, but saw that they were faith- 
fully practised. The appointed hours for which her ser- 
vice was due were but a small part of duty performed. 
She kept guard over the practising, and no pupil escaped 



430 LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN. 

her vigilance. The remark was made in Mr. Mann's 
presence by one who knew what she was speaking of, 
" She teaches hke one of Father Pierce's pupils." — " She 
was one of Father Pierce's pupils," was the reply. Instru- 
mental music was not taught in the Normal schools. But 
it mattered not what Father Pierce's pupils taught : their 
teaching had a uniform characteristic. I know nothing, 
personally, of the teaching in the Normal schools of the 
present day ; but that which was practised under the 
critical oversight of Mr. Mann was of the highest order. 
In Mr. Pierce and Mr. Tillinghast, the first preceptors of 
those schools, he found spirits kindred to his own ; and I 
can also speak from personal knowledge of Mr. Oonant, 
one of the successors. The components of the instruction 
Mr. Mann designed for Antioch College were the drill of 
West Point, and the conscience of the Normal schools 
of Massachusetts. Unhappily, there were not resources 
to meet the demands for the physiological training by 
which he meant to build up bodies ; and jealousies in re- 
gard to the choice of teachers from the East (where were 
the Western teachers ?) interfered with the perfecting of 
his plans for intellectual and moral culture. The latter, 
however, was not wholly dependent upon material aid ; 
and with the help of five ladies and one gentleman of the 
requisite training as well as of good natural ability, and 
of many others of equal good-will and ability though not 
so well fitted, it prospered to a remarkable extent, in spite 
of all drawbacks, even those of malice and envy. One of 
the proofs of inferiority is envy of superiority. Humble 
ignorance is, unfortunately, the exception rather than the 
rule. This is partly due to the nature of ignorance, and 
is one of the difficulties that cannot easily be solved. 

In some respects, another world lies beyond the gentle 
slopes of the dividing mountains which separate the East 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 431 

from the West. The general interests of all mankind 
are the same, and the bonds between the different sections 
of our country are indissoluble ; for it is all one civiliza- 
tion, flowing from one centre, originally organized by a 
great and overmastering sentiment of progress, destined 
to leaven the whole body politic with civil, religious, and 
political liberty. But no one can have lived long in both 
without perceiving that such widely separated sections of 
country have local differences and interests, as well as 
motives of action, which only a cosmopolitan spirit can 
identify as one at heart. It is certain that the East does 
not wholly comprehend the needs of the West, or such an 
interest as this one would have made itself felt to better 
purpose among those whose helping hand could easily 
have lifted it from the shoals on which it stranded. There 
were noble exceptions to this. 

The aid which the Unitarians gave to the institution 
was given with their characteristic liberality. The charter 
provided that two-thirds of the trustees and of the faculty 
should always be of the " Christian denomination." The 
Unitarians, whose speculative opinions are substantially 
the same, were perfectly willing to give assistance, not- 
withstanding this illiberal clause. They had no wish to 
have the control of the college. They wislied to aid 
liberal and unsectarian education. They alone had an 
approximate conception of the needs of that section of the 
land, and of the great part it was to play in the future 
destinies of the country. They saw, as Mr. Mann did, 
that this " Christian " sect was the only conduit through 
which unsectarian education could flow into the West ; 
for other religious sects were too exclusive to work cor- 
dially for any such end. The Universalists had as bad a 
reputation among the Orthodox as the Unitarians, and 
therefore could not be thus used so safely. The idea that 



432 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

God ill his love and mercy would finally bring all men 
into his fold, however much they might have sinned in 
this world, was one step in advance even of the ordinary 
belief of Unitarians : therefore they must be atheists. 
Even many Unitarians were afraid of such latitudinarian- 
ism as that, and set bounds to the love of God. But they 
were perfectly disinterested toward the Christians, and 
magnanimous enough to pour out their money without 
receiving even courtesy at their hands, so they would but 
improve by the use of it; and they were willing to trust 
that to Mr. Mann's judgment, capacity, and experience. 
But Pegasus cannot work in harness. The more liberal 
and disinterested they were, the more they were suspected 
of secret designs. This suspicion was artfully made use 
of by disappointed men, whose want of character, not 
whose religious opinions, as they pretended, led to their 
dismissal from the faculty. The good and true men bore 
every indignity ; were long-suffering under contumely ; 
sacrificed portions of their salaries; waited uncomplaining- 
ly for their just dues (and still ivait) ; and endeavored in 
every way to disarm ill-will, and to justify the motives of 
the truly generous sect that threw their thousands into 
an abyss, hoping one day to bridge it over. The men of 
the East alone knew the quality of the man who had un- 
dertaken the enterprise. How could the ignorant and the 
bigoted conceive of his plans, or comprehend their wisdom? 
To the very last, and even after the experienced head and 
heart that gave it its first impulse, and watched over it 
with the affection of a father, was irrevocably lost, the 
"Christian denomination" had every advantage of priority 
in action, plurality of vote, and repeated ojjportunities to 
rise from their own ashes. At last, the proposition came 
from themselves to deal more justly by their long-tried 
friends ; and now there is hope of future success, if men 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 433 

can be' found to labor in so arduous a field. The charter 
has been altered by excluding the obnosious restriction. 
The unsectarian feature of the original plan has been 
practically realized. " It is no part of Christian charity 
to be imposed upon," has been well said. The Unitarians 
have vindicated their unsectarian spirit nobly. They are 
even beginning to feel that they do not stand quite firmly 
enough upon their own opinions to act always with energy. 
The re-action in them from the otlier hateful extreme had 
been so great as almost to become a weakness. They 
have made themselves liable to Fort-Sumter treacheries 
by their candor and benevolence, and begin to reproach 
one another for not defending themselves more manfully. 
The ground has been broken for them at the West. The 
blood of martyrdom waters the spot. If they have the 
pecuniary means, they can take an independent stand, 
and be no longer at the mercy of an ignorant and unap- 
preciative public. Let them hang out their banner of 
Unitarianism, not defiantly, but invitingly, and crowds 
will come to enjoy the blessings they will diffuse. Many 
noble spirits, first kindled by Mr. Mann's labors, can give 
the best aid to any efforts now made. Time has winnowed 
the surrounding community of many characters that dis- 
figured it, and marred all generous effort. It is not yet 
too late to enlist the enthusiasm of many who personally 
knew the spirit in which Mr. Mann worked upon the 
underpinnings, and who knew something of the experience 
he gained which should not be lost, and which they shared 
with him. 

The body of the Christian denomination was repre- 
sented by men of limited education and narrow views, but 
a little in advance of the general ignorance, and who 
cared more for the advancement of their sect than for the 
advancement of learning and virtue. Mr. Mann accepted 

28 



434 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

ignorance as one of the evils he must necessarily combat. 
He did not despise it : he only pitied it, and bent every 
energy to removing it. But he had no respect for bigot- 
ry. The bigot may truly be said to be the only enemy 
that always baffled him. The influences of bigotry had 
clouded his childhood, taken the blue out of his sky in his 
early manhood, and haunted his imagination all his life. 
He encountered it in all his endeavors to promote the 
cause of education at the East as well as at the West. 
He hoped to drive it before him over the prairies, though 
he could not always hunt it out of its hiding-places in 
more conservative communities ; but, where ignorance 
reigns, bigotry and superstition will be sure to dwell with 
it. He could exorcise it from the young ; but it had 
become a part of the very vitality of the risen generation. 
Another demon, equally subtle, even more universal, the 
demon of selfishness, met him on every side. The two 
combined have ever baffled the influence of Christianity 
itself. They were linked together against all his efforts 
there. It would be an ungrateful task to enter into the 
details of the strife he waged with them. Perhaps he had 
conquered them at last. He thought he had driven 
them at bay at least, and hoped to deal a final blow by 
success, after outward obstacles to the prosperity of the 
institution were overcome. But his strength was spent 
in the conflict, in consequence of the great labors im- 
posed upon him ; and the venom which had been diffused 
by the crafty, the bigoted, and the selfish, had so far poi- 
soned the atmosphere, that none have been found strong 
enough since his death to extract the poison. 

The circumstance of his joining the Christian denomina- 
tion, of which he speaks himself in one of his letters, has 
been made the occasion of traducing his character for 
truth and openness. Any man can be accused of insin- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 435 

cerity by those who disagree with him. He has been ac- 
cused of it in politics by those who were angry with him 
for not adopting their views, and because he chose to 
make his own discriminations, and reserve to himself the 
right of breaking away from party when he thought par- 
ties forgot great principles in their partisan zeal ; and he 
has been accused of it in religious matters both by those 
whose latitudinarian views went beyond all the freedom 
of thought that he had attained, and by those who feared 
all freedom of thought. He was a man who earnestly 
enforced his own convictions of duty, but who modestly 
estimated the value of speculative opinions, and wished 
to impose them upon no one, not even his own children. 
He had that confidence in truth that made him trust it 
to enforce itself upon a truly sincere and inquiring mind. 
In short, his faith in God, and God's adaptation of means 
to ends, was a vital faith. He broke away from the dog- 
mas that were inculcated upon his youth by the force of 
this faith, when he was driven to the alternative of be- 
lieving God an unjust God, or of doubting the interpreta- 
tions of the Christian record that were imposed upon him. 
A truly logical intellect like his could not hesitate which 
to reject, until further light dawned upon him. 
- In the Bible-class at Antioch College, which he held for 
such members as volunteered to attend, it was his object 
to make a fair statement of the various interpretations, by 
different sects, of all disputed portions of the Scriptures, 
and then leave his hearers to adopt that which seemed to 
them most correct. On these occasions, his appeals to 
the conscience and the affections were as unique as his 
biblical criticisms. The latter he prepared with the aid 
of all the authorities he could find. For the former he 
appealed to the consciousness of each one of his hearers ; 
for in love and good works all men can unite, whatever 



436 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

tricks their intellects may play upon them. There are 
no two interpretations of the precepts, " Love one an- 
other," and " Do unto others as you would that others 
should do unto you." 

He has been called Utopian in his theory of the relation 
that should exist between young people in colleges. He 
thought the time had come when a higher principle than 
emulation should actuate those who were striving for in- 
tellectual and moral excellence, and when young people 
in colleges should be taught to live together as brethren, 
and upon a higher code of honor than that by which 
rogues protect each other in evil-doing. Stupid people 
looked on, and thought, that, if dogmatic religion were not 
taught, no religion could exist, and that there was no 
higher law than that of the rogue's creed, — " Defend me, 
and I will defend you." Indeed, the community in gene- 
ral know no other religion, and do not understand the 
principle of brotherly love ; but he felt sure that he could 
evoke a generous and Christian sympathy for each other in 
the young, if he had a chance to address them. And the 
event proved that he was right. Emulation was exorcised 
under his influence. Mutual furtherance and interest in 
each other's progress, intellectual and moral, took the 
place of it. The contrary was the exception. He incul- 
cated the precept, that the position of students created in 
them serious duties and responsibilities toward each 
other ; that, if the good among them could not influence 
the viciously inclined, it became their duty to seek the 
assistance of those who had assumed the parental relation 
towards them, not for purposes of chastisement, but for 
more powerful influence. 

A college was set fairly in operation, disfigured by no 
traditional barbarisms or meannesses, such as some of 
the institutions of the country have derived from their 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 437 

foreign prototypes. Mr. Mann frowned down the first 
symptoms of riotous conduct, and by meeting in fair en- 
counter, and battling with, what is called and also what 
is yielded to as "youthful indiscretion," taught young 
people coming to years of discretion to put aside the idle 
pranks of boys, and live together a dignified life of mu- 
tual respect and respectability. The presence of yoimg 
ladies in the institution doubtless made this work easier. 
A public meeting was soon called by the students, and a 
vote taken to uphold obedience to law and order. A 
paper dated 1859, found in his desk, is a fair sample of 
such resolutions as were voluntarily drawn up by succes- 
sive classes from the very beginning : — 

At a meeting of the senior class of Antioch College, March 16, 
1859, the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously 
adopted : — 

Whereas we, the senior class of 1859, believe in the necessity of 
laws for the regulation of any literary institution, and have full con- 
fidence in the ability of the faculty of our institution to make such 
laws ; therefore 

Resolved, That we will endeavor to obey the laws enacted by 
the faculty for the promotion of good morals and good order. 

Resolved, That our influence should be such as to induce our 
fellow-students to observe these laws, and such as shall promote the 
general welfare of the institution. 

This paper was duly signed by the chairman and the sec- 
retary of the meeting, and the words were not idle words. 
They implied far more than at first seems obvious ; for 
this promise to use their influence for public order was 
resolutely acted upon. The higher classes did not exer- 
cise a spirit of mean and petty annoyance towards the 
lower classes, as is the case in most colleges, but stood in 
the relation of elder brothers and sisters to them. The 



438 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

first senior class was small, but every member of it was a 
gem; and those eight members, constituting the first class 
that graduated, — swelled to fifteen in the third year by 
a deputation from Oberlin College in the same State, — 
were a better force in the moral regulation of the institu- 
tion than the faculty set over them. Each one of the 
former proved an efficient aid in the discipline; while 
many of the latter threw apples of discord not only into 
their own ranks, but among the students. Mr. Mann 
found it easier to induce the young people to take 
brotherly care of each other's welfare than to infuse his 
own spirit into the already demoralized characters of 
some of his coadjutors in government. This remark ap- 
plies only to three of the faculty, well known to those fa- 
miliar with the short annals of Antioch College, and who 
were got rid of at the first opportunity. But Mr. Mann 
felt strong in his young battalions. It was not long be- 
fore they understood that he looked to them to be their 
own police : and when a tutor, who had resided in the 
gentlemen's dormitory to keep order, was exchanged 
for a lady teacher, he appealed to the senior class, one 
day after chapel service, to know if they were not suf&- • 
ciently strong in moral force to take care of the building 
without such supervision. They rose to their feet simul- 
taneously, accepted the trust joyfully and confidently, 
kept the promise well, and transmitted its spirit to their 
successors. It was Mr. Mann's pride and delight ever 
after to walk through the gentlemen's hall at any hour 
of the day or night, and to take visitors with him, to 
convince them that a true spirit of honor and fidelity 
could be evoked from the young, if they were properly 
addressed. But this had not been achieved slumbering. 
It was a work he had delegated to no man ; for, though 
there were others who shared his faith, it required a de- 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 439 

»: votion, a vigilance, a judgment, and a spirit of love, which 
were untiring, and knew no secondary interests. Often 
he sprang from his bed at dead of night to know person- 
ally the secret of an unwonted sound, or to satisfy himself 

■, whether any suspicion of wrong-doing were well founded ; 
but he was so happy as never to have cause to repent of 
the confidence he had reposed in his young friends. So 
truly did he infuse his own spirit of guardianship into the 
hearts of his best students, that they often came to him 

:: to consult upon the measures to be pursued with a delin- 
quent brother, that he might be saved from a summons 
before the faculty. Such petitions as the following were 
not infrequent, though they were not always drawn up in 
writing : — 

" We the undersigned, classmates of , from our long and 

intimate acquaintance with him, believe that he will pursue a 
course of life honorable to himself, and useful to society ; and we 
do hereby express our earnest desire that he may be permitted to 
graduate with us." 

Can it be doubted that one so petitioned for, though 

in danger at the moment of losing his standing, kept 

: faith with his companions, and walked in the strait path ? 

Such petitions were oifered before Mr. Mann had by his 

.baccalaureate publicly proclaimed to the world that he 

• would give no diploma to an unworthy cliaracter ; but 

his students understood his principle very early. Far 

worse cases than this one, over which Mr. Mann and his 

students worked together in true filial and fraternal love, 

would disprove the slur that has been cast upon him by 

those who have said that he was not fit to guide young 

men because he " could not shut his eyes." He was 

principled against shutting his eyes. He would hunt a 

lie or a vice into its own corner, and bring it to light, if 



440 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

he spent months in the work, if he found he could not 
disarm it or bring it to confession by milder means ; but 
it is not true that he could not forgive a delinquent. He 
asked only for repentance, and was severe upon those 
only who sinned against light. To the weakly erring 
his tenderness was unbounded, and his patience measure- 
less. In these labors of love he was often so spent and 
prostrated, that he needed to be soothed as if a father's 
heart and hope had been wounded ; but his joy in success 
was so great, that, when he was thrown to the ground, 
he would rise from it Ant£eus-like, and go on rejoicing to 
new conflicts. Many a student was dismissed from his 
institution for the vice of persistent lying, — not always 
publicly, but removed by private communication Avith 
friends ; for that was the most hopeless form of youthful 
vice in his eyes, and he did not think it right to allow 
its contaminating influence in such a community. Our 
national vice of intemperance he treated like a physician, 
and shared with his students the vigils held over the few 
cases that came to an alarming crisis in the institution. 
But that vice never made headway there : a healthy pub- 
lic opinion made it impossible. This was his first object, 
to winnow out inveterate sinners of all kinds, and estab- 
lish a public opinion that should soon frown down all ex- 
cesses. To this end he was no respecter of persons ; and 
it is true that the children of some of the most prominent 
patrons of the institution were sent away from it on this 
ground, — that reckless and irresponsible persons must not 
be allowed there to corrupt the unwary, and spread de- 
moralizing influences which no disciplinary or precaution- 
ary measures could counteract. The result of this care 
was that fine moral tone which distinguished the institu- 
tion, and at last made it possible to receive difficult cases 
and effect reforms without injury to others. Before long, 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 441 

the college community ranked far higher than the outside 
community ; and it was this success which induced Mr. 
Mann to remain in it, even after he himself felt that his 
strength was giving way. He was confident that he had 
proved the position he had taken in the beginning ; and 
he knew that an influence had gone out, and would con- 
tinue to go out, into the schools and homes of the West, as 
far as his students might be scattered, that would make 
the institution one, as he once expressed it, " where men 
would send their children to save them." In conferences 
with other college faculties, he obtained expressions of 
concurrence with his views ; but, as far as I have learned, 
the concurrence ended with the expression. He thought 
something was gained, however, by winning over the 
intellectual sympathies of the elder generation so far that 
they could not in decency controvert them or deny their 
wisdom. He knew what advantage he had over older 
institutions which had been transplanted from the Old 
World with all their brutalities of custom ; but he did 
not relinquish the hope that even they might be brought 
to shame and reformation. 

A noble moralist, after sitting nine years in the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature, where he never lost sight of the 
highest aspects of public life, said he had left it with a 
better opinion of human nature than he had when he 
entered it. How heartily Mr. Mann sympathized in this 
opinion, after seeing some of his young pupils, fully pos- 
sessed with the noble Christian sentiment of brotherly 
love, lift some of their companions out of the deepest 
mire of sensuality and intemperance into the light of a 
new life ! 

But one complaint of depredation was ever made ; and 
that was the robbery of an Irishman's poultry-yard. This 
was treated by a short liistory, after morning prayers 



442 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

(an occasion which Mr. Mann often seized for any disci- 
plinary remarks he wislied to make in public), of the 
oppressions and disabilities which induced that unfortu- 
nate population to emigrate to a country better governed 
than their own, where their very consciences were made 
the means of oppressing them ; and an appeal to the 
better feelings of the youth around him to live up to the 
theory of their country's hospitality, and show the fruits 
of a superior culture by good behavior. It was well 
done, and it was the last occasion for such an exhorta- 
tion. 

No accidental or adventitious circumstances can ac- 
count for this. It was made a point of honor from the 
beginning to be gentlemanly and trustworthy in all rela- 
tions with the community. A lady walking in the village 
of Yellow Springs, or its outskirts, felt protected by the 
sight of any student of the college. Was not this a result 
worthy to die for ? 

When Mr. Hill was invited to be Mr. Mann's successor, 
the remark was made to him that he would hardly be 
required to carry out Mr. Mann's Utopian views as ex- 
emplified in his " Code of Honor." Mr. Hill replied that 
he had watched Mr. Mann's course with the greatest 
interest, and it was that special feature of it which made 
him wish to be his successor. 

There is no doubt that Mr. Mann's principle and reso- 
lution in regard to refusing admittance to no one on 
account of their color was a temporary disadvantage to 
the college, and alienated many who would otherwise 
have contributed to its support. He would have been 
very glad if such applications had not been made until 
pecuniary difficulties were past ; but he would never for 
a moment listen to the refusal of such applicants, if suit- 
ably prepared to enter. I remember but two instances 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 443 

in which the presence of two lovely young ladies of talent 
and refinement, who were slightly tinged in complexion, 
lost any actual scholars to the institution. One was of a 
young man from Delaware, whose father professed to be 
opposed to slavery ; but, when he learned from his son 
that he was in the same classes with these young ladies, 
he ordered him to leave the institution at once. By the 
time the command reached him, the son had discovered 
that the scholarship and standing of these classmates 
were far above his own, and that they were highly re- 
garded, and treated with as much respect as others : and 
he would fain have disobeyed the parental injunction ; 
but it was peremptorily repeated, and he left with great 
but unavailing regret. 

The other instance was that of a wealthy gentleman in 
the neighborhood, at the time President of the Board of 
Trustees. When his own daughter was of suitable age, 
and qualified to enter the preparatory school, he ordered 
the steward not to renew the entrance-tickets of those 
young ladies of color. The steward refused to comply, 
except by a vote of the Teaching Committee (Mr. Mann 
was one of these) ; which being refused, the gentleman 
threw up his office and all interest in the institution, 
and sent his daughter elsewhere. If the college is ever 
opened again, it is to be hoped that the great change of 
sentiment upon this subject, which has resolved some 
of the best and noblest of our Northern men and women 
into an educational commission for the instruction of the 
colored race, will make such circumstances as the above 
forever impossible. 

Mr. Mann's own letters will be the most satisfactory 
history of this last, best portion of his life ; and they will 
show how gradually, and almost unconsciously to him- 
self (for he never admitted it), his hope of success faded. 



444 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, Nov. 9, 1853. 

My deae. Downer, — It is a long time since I have daily said 
to myself, " Now I must write to my friend Downer; " but the 
day has brought its engagements and occupations, and so the letter 
to you, not the remembrance of you, has been postponed. Proba- 
bly I have suffered more from the delay than you have. . . . We 
are comfortably situated at last. Ohio growths are rapid growths ; 
but this does not hold true of our house, which has not yet grown 
up to the chamber-floor. Another year, if we live, will probably 
find us in better condition. . . . 

As to my daily life, it is a life of being busy rather than a life 
of hard labor. "We have two hundred students, and should have 
had more if oui' donnitories had been ready to receive them. This 
is considered here rather an extraordinary beginning. If they 
should call on "Mr. President," on an average, only once apiece 
in ten days, it would make twenty calls a day; and so you see what 
my liabilities to be interrupted are. When the main building is 
done, I shall have a room in it ; and then I shall have particular 
hours for receiving appHcations and visits. But you ask " how I 
like." Well, in few words, I think the moulding of youthful 
mind and manners is the noblest work that man or angels could 
do ; and I ought to be content to fill even a subordinate sphere in 
such work. I have now a course of lectures, mainly physiological, 
which I am delivering on Friday evenings this term ; and I have 
constant opportunities to say a word which may serve to shape opin- 
ion and character. 

I preached, Sunday before last, to a large audience of students 
and villagers, and got through, perhaps, as well as I had any right 
to expect for a beginner. 

Last Sunday, Mrs. M , E. , and I joined the Chris- 
tian Church. We thought our influence for good over the students 
would be increased. We had no ceremony of baptism ; we sub- 
scribed to no creed. We assented to taking the Bible for the 
" man of our counsel," as it was expressed, with the liberty of 
interpretation for ourselves ; and we acknowledged Christian char- 
acter to be the only true test of Christian fellowship. This is all. 

I was requested to speak for myself before the church. I said, 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 445 

that, ever since I Lad known the theological views of the Christian 
denomination, I had found them to be more coincident with my 
own than those of any other denomination; that I believed the 
whole duty of man consisted in knowing and doing the will of Grod ; 
that I desired to express this belief, and to show my regard for 
those who held it by uniting with them ; that my views for years 
had undergone no change. And then I entered an explicit caveat 
against the idea that belonging to any visible church organization 
was essential to salvation, quoting the case of Cornelius the centu- 
rion. I was unanimously voted in ; and so of the others, without 
their saying any thing, except through me, that they also wished to 
join. ... 

Yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



NovEMBEK, All-Saints' Day, 1853. 

Mt dear Mr. Mann, — "All Saints" is a good day to write 
to you, who sympathize with them all, and some of the sinners too, 
I trust. I concede to you the 29th for your lecture, with no 
meritorious self-denial ; for I had written and asked for a different 
day for myself. 

I have heard from you indirectly twice, — by the Howlands, 

good souls that they are ; and Downer, great noble heart that he is. 

Sorry that your impedimenta got impeded. The "Boston Courier" 

praised your Inaugural highly. What have you been doing to 

deserve that? We go on nicely here. Sumner is stumping the 

State : if he had done it last year, you would not have gone to 

Yellow Springs till January. Mr. Palfrey, you see, kicks at the 

new combination. He is good, conscientious as a saint, but not 

progressive. I respect his sacredness of individualism. He will 

not be mixed up with other men's messes, and so is a perpetual 

mar-plan, but always with most conscientious motives. 

Love from all to ditto. Truly, 

THEO. PARKER. 



446 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, Ohio, Nov. 29, 1853. 

My deaPv Mr. Combe, — ... M acknowledges that she 

has been egotistic ; and I must be egotistic too, if talking about our 
own afiairs constitutes egotism. I am wholly absorbed in my new 
work. I want to transfer the more improved methods of instruction 
and disciphne and the advanced ideas of education from the East to 
the West. I am well aware that the seed which I hope to sow wiU 
hardly come up in my day ; but my causality is so strong, that what 
is to be at any time has a semblance of being immediately present. 
Faith without causahty must be a tough problem. Oh, how I wish 
and yearn that you could be here, so that we might spend the re- 
mainder of our days together, and that, whoever of us should die 
first, the survivor might close his eyes ! 

Farewell ! 

HORACE MANN. 



Yellow Spkings, Ohio, Dec. 5, 1853. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — I do not know that we have any thing 
new in this country of which you would not be likely to hear in 
England through the ordinary channels of communication. Our 
new President is a thorough party man, who has been obliged to 
pass through a fiery ordeal, or rather to ran a terrible gantlet, in 
the distribution of his patronage. The "New- York Evening Post," 
a Free-soil, Democratic paper (which, however, strenuously sup- 
ported Mr. Pierce during the late campaign) , commends him in a 
left-handed way for filling all our foreign missions with persons who 
can leave the country for the next four years without being missed 
at home. It is thought that the nominations to office have almost 
exclusive reference to the highest good of the country and of man- 
kind, — that is, assuming that the President's re-election at the 
end of the four years will be more promotive of the well-being of 
mankind than all other things, — for these nominations are made 
with reference to that event. 

What do you think of France ? . . . 

Frivolity, sensuality, and the Catholic reli^on, — what will they 
not do for the debasement of mankind ? 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 447 

Howe remains very mueh as heretofore, — rather broken in 
health, but glorious in spu-it. When he goes, it will be almost 
like taking the pilot from the hehn. I should miss him more than 
it is possible for me to describe. . . . 

Since writing the above, I have received your note of the 27th 
of May. If your health depended upon my volition, how strong 
you should be ! 

I am, as ever, most truly your friend, 

HORACE MANN. 



Yellow Springs, Ohio, April 24, 1854. 

My dear Me. Craig, — What will you think of Mr. Horace 
Mann? What can Mr. Horace Mann expect that you will think 
of him ? Though you have written to me several times since I came 
to sojourn this side of Jordan, and made only the most reasonable 
requests, yet I must confess that I have not replied at all. Now, 
rather than bear the whole offence of this apparent neglect and un- 
kindness, I must charge something to Nature, or circumstances, 
or fate. 

Let me say that I have either had too much to do, or Nature did 
not give me strength enough to perform what she threw into my 
hands, or circumstances baffled me in the fulfilment of events that I 
counted on as certain. In short, it is hardly too much to say that 
I have thought of you continually, have retained all my admiration 
of you, have praised you with earnest and sincere words, and have 
all the time — that is, from week to week for three months past — 
intended to avail myself of the occasion of sending you my Inaugu- 
ral, to wiite you a letter of explanations and thanks and hopes. 
For three months past, I have been constantly deluded with the 
promise that my address would be ready for me, and as constantly 
disappointed. I now send you a copy of it, invoking your kind- 
ness, but deprecating your criticism. 

My dear Mr. Craig, when are you coming out here ? It seems 
as though almost any thing desirable could be done if you were 
with us. Much must long remain to be done, if you are not. I 
want once more to see you and converse with you on this subject. 



448 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Shall you not attend the Unitarian convention next May in Louis- 
ville? When you do come, you must calculate to spend two or 
three sabbaths with us, and preach in our chapel. 

We are prospering as to numbers. All places for lodging in the 
college and in the village have been crowded from the beginning. 
We now have almost three hundred. More than a thousand have 
apphed, but could not obtain accommodations. We are, however, 
filhng up fast enough. I should not desire a very large quantity 
of this raw material all at once. We had better have it and ma- 
nipulate it by degrees. Do let me hear from you ; do let me see 
you. When you come, come with the idea in your mind of an 
ultimate change of residence. 

Yours as ever, with great regard, 

HORACE MANN. 



The following letter was addressed to the acting super- 
intendent of the institution, and shows by its tenor how 
little Mr. Mann and the other members of the faculty 
were consulted upon the important point of selecting 
teachers. In this instance, as in many others, the selec- 
tions were made without reference to the instruction 
required, but to satisfy denominational demands ; a con- 
sideration quite at variance with the declared spirit of the 
institution. One such appointee could neither spell nor 
use English correctly, and yet he had been set over 
the preparatory school. 

Yellow Springs, April 27, 1854. 
A. M. Merkifield, Esq. 

Deae Sir, — At the beginning of our present session, in order 
to meet the promises of our original prospectus and the requests of 
a large class of our students, we included book-keeping among the 
studies to be taught during this term. This was inserted in the 
programme, which has been posted in our halls ever since. 

Inquiries have been constantly made, since our present term com- 
menced, when the class in book-keeping would be organized. To 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 449 

these inquiries we have replied, that we were only awaiting the 
arrival of a new teacher, whom, for four weeks, we have now been 
daily expecting. 

After you introduced Mr. K to me yesterday, and I in- 
formed him that book-keeping was one of the studies he was desired 
to teach, he replied that he had never studied it, was unacquainted 
with it, and, had he been informed by you that he was expected to 
do so, he should not have engaged to come here.* 

At a meeting of the faculty, held to-day, the members instructed 
me to address the trustees through you, and inform them that 
they deem it indispensable, in order to redeem our promises on the 
one side, and to meet the justly raised expectations of the students 
on the other, that some teacher be immediately appointed who can 
teach book-keeping. 

All the members of the faculty expressed the opinion, that, had 
any one of them been inquired of as to the qualifications expected 
in or the duties required of the new teacher, book-keeping would 
have been the first item mentioned after the necessary executive or 
disciplinary power. 

In compliance with the direction of the faculty, I transmit to 

you this statement, and remain 

Very truly yours, &c. , 

HOKACE MANN. 

The chapter of difficulties opened up by this letter 
might be continued by innumerable details. Suffice it to 
say, for the present, that it had no end. Jealousy of 
Unitarian influence predominated in all the college coun- 
cils, from its commencement to its sale under the sheriif 's 
hammer in 1859. Many high-minded men were tempora- 
rily alienated from its interests by the industrious circula- 
tion of this sectarian jealousy. It prevented the appoint- 
ment of some able teachers, as well as saddled incompe- 

* This very estimable gentleman was selected by the superintendent, without 
any consult.ation with Mr. Mann as to what was required in the department. He 
could teach Latin admirably, however. 
29 



450 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

tent ones upon the institution. In some departments, 
this evil was never fully remedied ; and it was only amaz- 
ing that so many students clung to it so long ; for many 
came and went disappointed of their just expectations, 
especially in regard to modern languages, which disap- 
pointment was due to no other cause. It is true that the 
want of funds came to be a serious obstacle to securing 
the services of distinguished men whose names might 
have given eclat to the college ; but, for all purposes of 
thorough instruction, Mr. Mann could have found enough 
persons who would have worked under him for a pittance, 
if he could have had any freedom of choice. But the first 
qualification of a candidate came to be, in the eyes of the 
trustees, "-Does he agree sufficiently with us in religious 
opinions ? " instead of '■'Has he the attainments to fit him 
for the position ? " Yet how the brave, indomitable heart 
plodded on, hoping continually for better things, till the 
burden was no longer to be borne ! 

Newakk, Ohio, Jan. 1, 1854. 

My deab, Mr. Parker, — I wish you a happy New Year; ay, a 
great many of them. I came down to this pleasant village to lec- 
tm-e, from Cleveland. There I heard your name announced, and 
it has been ringing in my ears ever since. How I want to hear 
you ! how I want to see you ! When I have time to think of 
it, what a feeling of loneliness and far-ofFness comes over me at the 
idea of being separated from you and Howe and Downer, and 
others whom I so much love, not only benevolently, but selfishly ! 
for how necessary a part of all personal hopes and plans, as well as 
all my more public duties, you had become. But, when I think of 
what was once my home and my sphere, a feeling which I suppose 
must be like Turkish fatalism comes over me, and I say to myself, 
" Here you are, and here you must remain. Fate has you in its 
grip, and resistance is impossible. No secondary cause can release 
you, at least for a time. Go on, and transmute your evil into 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 451 

good as far as you can." So I submit, and try to make sunrises 
and sunsets look as when I could see my friends Ln the horizon. 

I have nothing to say which can be of any special interest to 
you. I wiite to beseech you, if possible, to come and see us when 
you are in our neighborhood. If you go to Cincinnati, you are, when 
at Xenia, but nine miles from this place ; even at Sandusky or 
Toledo, only a day's ride. What a different hue you would give 
to the sunhght ! I had a most delightful visit from Downer. I 
felt a new emotion. I enjoyed his presence so much as to make 
me taciturn. Did you ever have that feehng beside a friend ? I 
have not for years, and supposed it belonged to lovers. 

I am working in faith. I don't know as I see any results, or 
ever shall see them ; but I think that causes must produce effects, 
and so strive to put the causes in motion. I know that such 
things as I try to say to the young would have influenced me when 
I was young ; and so I hope they may not all fall upon stony 
ground. But our sphere of action is so limited, and our foresight 
so short, that we must draw our encouragement more from faith 
and our philosophy than from realization. My position here has 
brought me into practical outward religious exercises ; and I assure 
you I have enjoyed them very much. 

Before I came from Massachusetts, I asked several of our authors 
and poets to give me each a copy of their published works for our 
library. I should have asked you too ; only, when I saw you, you 
excluded all else from my thoughts. Let me ask you now. Please 
send them to me from home ; or, if you can, bring them with you 
to our place, or to the point where you approach it nearest. 

I wish you would also procure for me Dr. Hitchcock's "Discourse 
on the Resurrection : " I mean the one in which he holds that 
the " new body " may have no relation of identity with the " old 
body," but may only be the same number of pounds of oxygen, 
hydrogen, and carbon, got together in the same way ! or at least so 
nearly the same way that no one will ever detect the difference, 
which I suppose would be just as well. 

If Mrs. Mann were here, I know she would join me in most 
loving messages to Mrs. Parker and Miss Stevenson and other 
friends. 

Yours as ever, most truly, HORACE MANN. 



452 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

These familiar words to his friend show a trait in Mr. 
Mann's character, — the ever-recurring doubt, whether 
he was doing all that ought to bo done in whatever 
sphere of duty he might be engaged. How often, when 
he had been wrought to great fervor of thought and 
speech on some topic of paramount interest to his own 
mind and heart, would he wonder and wish to know 
whether the fire kindled in other breasts ! A little more 
confidence in his own power to execute his conceptions 
would have added much to his happiness ; but, as results 
do not come immediately, he had to take refuge in his 
causality for encouragement. What a blessing his logic 
was to his heart ! over what seas of difficulty and opposi- 
tion and ingratitude it bore him ! 

One of his most appreciative pupils,* writing to a 
friend of the impression he made in his class-room, says, 
'' His mode of teaching was snggestive and stimulating ; 
not so holding his flock to the dusty, travel-worn path as 
to forbid their free access to every inviting meadow or 
spring by the way. It was his wont to hear us recite a 
few hours each week, assigning special lessons to special 
pupils, giving each some question, some theory, some 
matter-of-fact inquiry, on which each could pursue inves- 
tigations at leisure, and prepare a paper to be read before 
the whole class, and be commented upon by himself. 
The range of these topics (when political economy was 
the subject) — taking in questions of agriculture and 
soil-fertilization, of canals and railroads, of commerce, of 
cotton-gins or steam-ploughs, of population, of schools and 
churches and public charities in their economic relations, 
and of those rising civilizations which bear up art and 
foster science, both necessitating and making possible 
greater civil and spiritual freedom, yet having their roots 

* Eev. H. C. Badger. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 453 

among these lower material conditions — illustrates the 
comprehensiveness of Mr. Mann's favorite methods of 
educating and instructing our minds. 

" But even this was not so peculiar to him as a certain 
personal impulse lie imparted to all who came in contact 
with him, — the impetus with which his mind smote our 
minds, rousing us, and kindling a heat of enthusiasm, as 
it were, by the very power of that spiritual percussion. 
It was in this that he was so incomparable. A man 
might as well hope to dwell near the sun unmoved as not 
to glow when brought to feel his fervid love of truth and 
heartfelt zeal in its quest. The fresh delight of childhood 
seemed miraculously prolonged through his life : truth 
never palled upon his mind ; the world never wore a 
sickly light. And this cheerful spirit, which was at bot- 
tom nothing but the most living faith in God and man, 
was so contagious, that indifference, misanthropy, despair 
of attaining truth, gave way before it, or were trans- 
formed into a like hearty enthusiasm. 

" Then, in guiding the new-roused impulse, he was so 
conscientious and candid, so careful not to trench on the 
borders of individuality, nor to let our loving respect for 
him so fix our eyes on his opinion that we should lose 
the beckon of some proximate truth, that we felt him as 
gentle to guide as he was powerful to inspire." 

Another answer to this question, to which he could hear 
no response at the time, is in the words of one who grew 
under him as only noble germs can grow, who saw him 
in all his later trials, and who watched over his last days 
with the tenderness of a son ; and of whom the sufferer 
said, " His touch is as delicate as that of a woman." He 
now devotes himself and his rare gifts of heart and miuJ 
to the noble charity of guardian of the Soldiers' Home at 
Memphis, Miss.* 

* C. W. Christy, guardian of the Soldiers' Home at llempUis, Miss. 



454 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

With Horace Mann it is eminently true that religion was central : 
it was the core of his life. Four years ago, I did not say so ; but 
in the depths of experience I have since learned that morality, as 
he saw it, includes what is usually called religion. He did not 
translate the moral law of the universe as too many of us translate 
it, who are satisfied to say that " honesty is the best policy;" that 
it is better to do right than wrong : but he found, and he said 
boldly, that the moral law is in the imperative. We ought to do 
and feel ria-ht because it is right, not because God commands, or 
that we shall get our reward in the future. If there be any moral 
perfection possible for us in this life, it is to have come to so love 
and desire right and virtue simply as right and virtue, that we shall 
not need to elect or choose them, but shall unconsciously and spon- 
taneously cleave to and follow after them. To my own mind, I am 
wont to symbolize the life of Mr. Mann by the figure of an ardent 
and strong youth begirt with the perils and temptations of life, with 
these four sentences engraved around him in characters of fire : — 

What is the moral law of the universe, — the highest I know, or 
can know ? and what does it teach ? 

That moral law ought to be obeyed. 

That moral law can be obeyed. 

That moral law I will obey, mat ccdum. 

And when I add that no press or allurement of circumstances 
was able to entice or force him from his loyalty to this moral law, I 
have completed the statement of the central and organizing fact of 
his entire life. From this point we easily trace outward through 
his external life the influence of what thus lay at the centre of his 
being. All those angularities, those Gibraltar points, which so 
foiled and annihilated his adversaries, were doubled in power by his 
fidelity to the right. I said, his angularities; for thus certain traits 
in him appeared to some minds : but the clearer vision of another 
world will show us that his character was not angular, save as it 
was a mighty and loyal will crystallized. 

Does it seem strange to any that such a character as his, as the 
world saw it, should have religion as its basis and organizing prin- 
ciple ? . . . He tells us himself that he early came to grapple with 
the highest and yet fearfulest problems of human existence. Is 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 455 

not here proof enougli that Rehgion, in some form, must be the 
primal conscious force of his life ? The world dealt sternly with 
him : she brought him to the armories of power ; she trained him 
to industry or diligence, until, as he himself says, it became his 
second nature. And who shall trace the secret foundations of 
wisdom and power laid in that theologic or religious orphanage 
which brings one face to face with despair and with Grod ; which 
fills one's being with such an unutterable sense of aloneness and 
captivity, that life reveals itself as a flight through time to the 
bosom of the infinite Father ? Who shall tell us what magazines 
of will are gained, of grim, earnest force, direct, persistent, affir- 
mative, swift ; what clearness and length of vision ? We are every- 
where called upon to adulterate our life. It is considered a fine 
thing to have a little virtue, a homoeopathic pellet of piety, in solu- 
tion, in social and business life ; but, as the point of saturation is 
neared, the man is regarded as less and less likely to succeed in the 
world : every thing is spoiled if there be a precipitation. We forget 
that to be truly religious is to love as the soul says, without compro- 
mise, without hesitancy, without evasion, and without idleness ; 
with a rugged and angular energy, it may be, scorning consequences ; 
or possibly with a lamb-like, retiring temper, which works vrithout 
friction ; which stays at home, or, if it goes abroad, goes as the 
angel of mercy and inevitable love, so evacuated of passion as to be 
unable to lift the axe of the reformer. Is there not need of both 
the lion and the lamb ? And is it our place to say that Grod should 
send here none but lambs ? If Nature makes up her material into 
a lion, the breath of life which God breathes into him does not trans- 
form him into a lamb, but he becomes one of God's lions. . . . 

There are men who seem to front an infinite background of law, 
justice, and power : in their presence, the reverences natural to the 
soul rise up to assert themselves. All who came into the presence 
of Mr. Mann, especially in his hours of work, when the lion within 
him rose up and fought, felt that awe and reverence which power, 
genius, and virtue inspire. Few persons, if any, were so abandoned 
as to dare to be trivial or vicious in his presence. Some of us here 
know how he grappled with the apostle of fi-ee love : others can tell 
better than I of his conflict with the " great giant " of New Eng- 



456 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

land ; of his short but earnest career in Congress ; of his holy war 
upon intemperance, tobacco-using, and slavery. At such times, 
from every nerve of his being there seemed to come forth a whole 
park of Jove's artillery. It was this same religiousness that gave 
him such an inevitable directness in all he said and did. He 
gravitated as straight and as surely to the right as the stone gravitates 
to the earth. He seemed to travel the highway of power. He had 
courage and persistency because he had faith enough to do duty. 
We all know how present to him was the future. IramortaHty was 
one of the most familiar words upon his lips ; and there seemed 
never to be absent from his thought the living sense of the truth, 
that the future flows out of the present. Virtue is moral victory, — 
is an infinite series of moral victories : hence constancy of purpose 
and of labor is indispensable. Labor to him was a sacrament. As 
Cecil said of Sir Walter Raleigh, " We know that he could and did 
toil terribly." I find no other character which so illustrates to me 
that saying of Novahs as Mr. Mann : " By enlargement and culti- 
vation of our activity, we change ourselves into fate." 

Character and motives seemed almost transparent beneath his 
look. Cecil says, " I could write down twenty cases wherein I 
wished God had done otherwise than he did, but which I now see, 
had I had my own will, would have led to extensive mischief." 
Thus I think we may say of Mr. Mann's administration of this 
college. How many of us at the time thought some of his measures 
needlessly severe ? Some persons, perhaps, thought them unjust. 
We were sure our own way would have been better. But now, 
after a little time, can we put our finger upon a case where we 
think our way would have been better ? How much of his wisdom, 
how much of any man's wisdom, comes to him as a result of his 
love of virtue, and of his obedience to the moral law ? Those are 
not hyperboles of the heart, beside itself with enthusiasm, which we 
read in the Scriptures : " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom ; " " Commit thy ways unto the Lord, and he shall bring 
forth thy righteousness and thy judgment as the noonday." Do 
we not think, that, the purer and more transparent the medium, the 
farther and more copiously enters the light ? and is not the good 
man the medium through which God shines down into humanity ? 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN, 457 

One of the great benefits of sucli a man is tliat his life forces men 
to take sides decisively ; to be black or white : for it is yet true 
that the least tolerable of all human bemgs are those who are neither 
hot nor cold. His speech and his manner constantly made the 
appeal, " How long halt ye between two opinions ? " I often saw 
in him the old Hebrew earnestness, sternness, clear far-sightedness, 
that sees things as Grod sees them. And then he had the rarest of 
all qualities, — that of living as he believed. That is the highest 
praise of any man. Let him be soUd ; of one piece through and 
through ; a man upon whom you can make observations, and of 
whom you can compute the future with just as great certainty as the 
astronomer calculates the movements of the sun and stars for cen- 
turies ahead. 

I find no discrepancy between this deep religiousness of his char- 
acter, and that fierce, vmevadable vigor with which he pursued vice 
and its confirmed votaries. Where virtue and right were assailed, 
he acted with the rapidity and intensity of the lightning-stroke. 
The delusion has fallen upon men in these days, that every thing is 
to be done by compromise ; by compounding with God, so as to let 
the Devil have matters partly his own way. It is expected that 
the attrition of our life will abrade and remove not only the social 
angles, but also the moral angles, of a man's character. Hence it 
is regarded as in some degree a fault in a man to act in the presence 
of vice as natural forces act when the conditions of their action are 
met. Truth, we ought to know, has a natural divine right ; and 
whether it lives and acts in a man, or in the thunderbolt from Grod's 
own hand, it has a normal right to resist, to crush, to annihilate. 
The common parlor prudence of our day, the custom of lying, and 
betraying one's self to the Devil, which we have baptized and 
admitted not only into conversation and business, but even into the 
church and into morals, under the name of expediency and good 
policy, — this custom of trying to serve Grod and Mammon, Mr. 
Mann defied, and boldly put under his feet. His life was a constant 
negation to that shameful maxim of worldly policy, that every man 
has his price. 

For five years he went out and in among us, our teacher and ad- 
viser, our reproof and encouragement; a Christian, and, as it were, 



458 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

our father. He came to many before me to-day as the spring sun 
comes to northern groves and hillsides, the bringer and free-giver 
of life and beauty. He rose upon our educational world like a 
star out of the east. And yet the very depth and blood-heat 
of my reverence and affection for him would forbid me to open my 
lips in the presence of those less wi'ought upon by his heroic life 
and death. As yet, we are unused to his absence. If his lithe form, 
with its elastic, resiUent step and dignified bearing, radiant with 
the strength of self-conquest and impregnable virtue, were to walk 
among us again to-day, and we were to hear once more his well- 
weighed, living speech, it would be as if our dearest friend had re- 
turned to us after a short absence, rather than as the appearing of 
the dead among the living. The world saw him as the stern, lion- 
hearted worker. We who dwelt with him as his pupils knew him 
as the kind adviser, as tender and solicitous of our welfare as our 
own parents. Those who knew him in the bosom of his family, 
where he unbent, and let all the genialness and affection of his 
deep nature come forth, tell us that in none did they find such 
richness and tenderness of heart, — richness and tenderness as of 
a mother. 

Numerous other testimonials of similar interest could 
be given from the reminiscences of students; but the 
limits of this work cannot contain them. 

Boston, Jan. 8, 1854. 

My dear Mr. Mann, — Many a Christmas and New- Year's good 
wish did we all send after you as the old year drew nigh its end. 
You do not know how often Howe and Downer and I want to see 
you, and strengthen ourselves in your great might and high pur- 
pose. But it is a noble post that you occupy. I am glad that you 
are there, — sad enough for my own sake ; sympathizing, too, for the 
heartache which I know often comes over the homesick man. But 
I think of the generations which will rise up and call you blessed. 
I think New England had no seed in her granary which the West 
needed so much as yourself. Now God has sown you in Ohio, I 
look for gi-eat harvests which mankind shall one day reap there- 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 459 

from. I know what energy you will bring to the work, what power 

to conceive and to organize your thought. I am glad you have 

also taken to preaching, trusting that you will preach the great 

natural religion whereof the revelations of old time are but a small 

part. Grod inade the universe; man made the Bible; and poor 

Christian ministers say to the people, " Hush ! don't hsten to the 

universe, only to the Bible : the universe is Nature ; the Bible is 

grace ; it is Grod." . . . Grod bless you ! 

Yours truly, 

THEODORE PARKER. 

Yellow Springs, Feb. 28, 1854. 

My dear Downer, — ... What do the Webster men say now ? 

The Nebraska Bill is the first upas-tree that grows out of his 

grave. . . . 

Yours ever and truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Speings, March 13, 1854. 

My dear Sumner, — ... I cannot describe my feelings to you 

on the Nebraska Bill. I seem like one who is dragged by fiery 

devils or Douglasses — it don't matter which — into Tophet, from 

which, for the next five hundred years, I see no escape. It is 

a case of desperation. It so encompasses me about, that nothing 

but the power and wisdom of Grod seems capable of reaching outside 

of it. Have you any hope ? 

Very truly yours, &c., 

HORACE MANN. 

New York, May 13, 1854. 

My dear Mr. Mann, — How long it is since I have written you 
a line, or read one from you ! But I hear from you often by 
Downer and various others ; and I find that you are doing the 
same great work for Ohio which you did for Massachusetts. Well, 
God bless you ! But I fear that your excessive labors, as well 
voluntary as official, will break you down. Remember that it is a 
new country to you that you are now in. Do be wise ; for we cannot 



460 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

spare you yet. I fear the good God will wait some time before he 
gives us another Horace Mann. I thank you heartily for your long- 
looked-for " Inaugural." It will give pleasure to more than one of 
the household. . . . We have an antislavery convention from all the 
free States at Buffalo on July 4. " Voila le commencement du 
Jin! " Love to all. 

Good-by ! 

T. PARKER. 

Yellow Spkings, May 30, 1854. 

My dear Mr. Parker, — You ought to know, that, ' ' outside 
barbai-ians " as we are, your " Nebraska Sermon " and your " Dis- 
course of Old Age," &c., are on the counters of our village book- 
stores. But none the less did I prize those sent under your own 
autograph, which (though not always unattended with difficulties) 
is always delightful to eyes and heart. 

When your note of the 23d reached me, I was pronus, but am 
now getting erect. I have talked with Judge Mills about a rally 
of Northern forces, in defence of liberty, on the "Theatre of 
Words." Here we are gi-eat and glorious. Only give us some 
question where virtue and duty and piety can all be satisfied by 
fine speeches, and there never was such valor ; but, beyond that, 
what cowards and cravens and shirks ! 

If the men who would go to such a convention would expend 
the same amount of time and means in convertino- or in rousing their 
own neighborhoods, now or before the next elections, something 
might be done; but I confess that latterly, at temperance meetings, 
antislavery meetings, &c., I have felt somewhat sheepish. I have 
heard a voice saying to me, "Why are you here, and not elsewhere ? 
why are you talking, and not acting ? why do you launch the thun- 
derbolts of Salmoneus, and not of Jupiter ? " 

The North, in 1850, vested its capital in slavery. The Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill is the first payment of interest. 

The papers this moming tell us of your commotion in Boston. 
Oh, how I burn to see it ! I know you will be brave ; and there- 
fore will only say, Be prudent. When Boston was besieged in the 
Revolution, liberty was far less in danger than now. Why should I 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 461 

say, as is customarily said, " God help us ! " I tbink lie retorts, 

" Help yourselves ! " . . . 

With best regards of all of us to all of you, 

HORACE MANN. 



Yellow Springs, June 5, 1854. 

My dear Downer, — ... What is the real state of the public 
mind and the Boston mind in regard to the practical beauties of the 
Fugitive-slave Law?* I get nothing worth a pin, except through 
the " New- York Tribune " and " Evening Post." Is Massachusetts 
any more worth living in than it was ? Is there to be a time when I 
can speak of it without blusliing ? I know there are glorious men 
in it, as excellent as ever lived ; but are they still under suppres- 
sion? How I am mortified to think of L ! and yet it is only 

Websterism come to a head. . . . What glorious resolutions those 
were of Howe's ! I bear this new outbreak from hell with a sort of 
sullen composure. When others display their excitement, and talk 
vengeance, I tell them that I went through all that experience in 
1850 ; that they are now only where I was then ; and that, if they 
had been there at that time, none of us would be here to witness 
what we now see. Can any thing be more true ? 

Off here a thousand miles, it looks as though the thing had not been 

well managed. Reasoning on the side of the rioters, and for the 

object of the riot, it was either folly to kill one man, or it was folly 

not to kill enough to answer the purpose. Do let me hear from 

you ; and, oh, how glad I shall be to see you ! . . . 

Yours as ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, June 16, 1854. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — I received, in due course of mail, yours 
of May 7. To that part of it which related to your health, let me 
say that I am rejoiced to know that a clergyman is recognizing and 
obeying the laws of health, and performing the first steps in the 
regeneration of the race ; that is, their physical reformation. You 

* Anthony Burns had just been surrendered. 



462 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

honor pliilosophy and religion alike by so doing, and eni'oU yourself 
in the new school and amono; the new ho;hts.* 

I ought not entirely to omit, and yet how can I properly notice, 
that part of your letter in which you refer to the "Inaugural"? 
I never wrote any thing that seemed to me to fall so far short of 
what should be said on the theme therein discussed. Your partiaHty 
alone makes you speak of it kindly : and yet I love to be com- 
mended, even for such a reason ; that is, by such a man. 

But, my dear sir, I sat down tliis time to make love to you ! 
Do not be alai-med. I am serious and literal ! I must woo you ; 
and nobody could woo who did not hope to win. 

The Rev. Mr. Ladley, who has preached to the Christian Church 
in this village for the last few years, has just resigned. They are 
looking for a successor. Yesterday the committee called on me to 
make inquuy. Whom could I speak or think of but you? ... If 
your right ear did not burn, there is no truth in signs. 

And now, my dear sir, you want to do good. That is your 
divinely appointed mission. Where else can you reach and help to 
fashion three, four, five, or perhaps six hundi-ed growing minds, 
and fashion them after your idea of the image of Christ ? There 
never was such an opening for you ; there may never be such 
another. Were I a behever in special providences, I should think 
this had all the signatures of genuineness. We have a paper here, 
the "Gospel Herald:" where else can you better write? We 
shall have a library ; where else can you better study ? We are 
students of earthly lore : will you not infuse the heavenly ? We 
are among a money-loving people : will you not make them sanctify 
money in its uses ? 

Re-preaching your sermons will give you a great deal of time for 
other services. Every thing says, " Come." " The Spirit and the 
Bride say, Come." 

The people here are favorable to extempore sermons ; that is, 
when, as Mirabeau said, they have been fully thought out before- 
hand. I beheve you preach so mainly. . . . 

Yours as ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

* Mr. Mann here refers to the new philosophy growing out of the principles of 
phrenological science, for which this was his favorite designation. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 463 

Yellow Springs, July 1, 1854. 
Rev. Theodore Parker. 

My dear Sir, — Will you give us a lecture during tlie ensuing 

lecture season ? I am most anxious that our students should hear 

you, — the young men that they may see the combined eifeet of 

talent and culture, and the young women that they may know the 

difference between men and butterflies. . . . 

With best regards to all, 

HOEACE MANN. 

To this Mr. Parker replied, when he was ready to visit 
the West: — 

My dear Mr. Mann, — I hope to be in the place where "the 

disciples were first called Christians," on Saturday, the 14th instant. 

But as it would be very improper for such a heretic as I am to 

preach at Antioch on Sunday, and as I fear there is small chance 

for my hearing yourself, and as I doubt the worth of listening to 

the Rev. , I wish to know if there is not some place in its 

neighborhood, say Dayton e.g., where so wicked a man could hold 

forth and be welcome. If so, can you set the thing agoing in such 

a manner that I may ride thither on the following day ? 

Yours faithfully, 

THEO. PARKEE. 

Mr. Parker was listened to with deep interest at Antioch ; 
and many a petition was brought in, backed by earnest 
entreaties, and also in some cases by the expression of 
almost angry disappointment when refused, that Mr. 
Parker should be invited to preach. But Mr. Mann had 
but one vote in the faculty on that subject ; and both he 
and Mr. Parker thought it not best even to make the 
proposition, which would surely have failed to succeed, 
and might have added threefold bitterness to the existing 
jealousy of what was supposed to be Unitarian encroach- 
ment. 

Mr. Mann's caution was not founded on any fear of 



464 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

uttering truth : but he did not quite approve the spirit in 
which Mr. Parker uttered what he conscientiously thought 
truth; neither did he think, from his experience there, that 
Mr. Parker would be understood or appreciated for his real 
worth by men upon whose breath the whole existence of 
the institution depended. For such measure of light as 
he thought Mr. Parker to have attained, — and he was 
of opinion that no other man was doing an equal work for 
the rights of private judgment and free speech, — that 
community was not ripe. 

Instead of shocking religious sensibility and life-long 
associations by rude assaults upon the drapery in which 
sucli faith as they had was clothed, he would have echoed 
the words of John Robinson at Leyden : " The Lord has 
more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. . . . 
Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their 
times ; yet they penetrated not the whole counsel of God. 
I beseech you, remember, 'tis an article of your church 
covenant that you be ready to receive whatever truth 
shall be made known to you from the written word of 
God." Nor did he forget the more ancient words : " I 
have yet many things to say unto you ; but ye cannot 
bear them now ; " which, unhappily, are as applicable now 
as then to many regions, even where the light of truth has 
dawned. It was in this spirit, and not in that of hypocri- 
sy, with which he has been charged even by Mr. Parker, 
because he did not follow the method that seemed to the 
latter good, that he met and disarmed opposition, while 
he expressed his sympathy with all that was gained of 
freedom. 

The following letter is inserted for its hearty expres- 
sion of sympathy : — 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 465 

EocKPORT, July 13, 1854. 

Hon. Horace Mann. 

My dear Sir, — Your letter of the 3d has just reached me by the 
sea-side. If you will promise to stay away from the lecture-room, 
I will pledge myself to visit Yellow Springs, if I am invited to any 
neighboring cities of Ohio. It would afford me the greatest pleas- 
ure to see you and your institution ; and I should jump at the naked 
hook, unbiassed by the offer of your hospitality or any lecture fee. 
I know you will be generous enough not to compel me to utter my 
sleazy thoughts before the prince of lecturers. ... I ought to tell 
you with what admiration I read your "Inaugural," a few days 
ago, in the shadow of the rocks by the sea-shore. There is vitality 
enough in it to make a college thrive in Sahara. One would like 
to know the details of the diet that floods the brain with such impet- 
uous electricity for the service of truth, making the sentences 
tingle the eye when they are read. Do you have a Leyden jar for 
a sauce-box upon your table ? 

Doubtless our Nebraska bills are fed at the root by tobacco-juice, 
brandy, and the weak liquor that trickles into the public mind from 
most of the sacrificial churches of the country ; and it does the in- 
most soul good to read such hearty and vivid religious appeals as 
your "Inaugural" makes in favor of obedience to the hidden 
gospel in the constitution of body, mind, and soul. 

Believe me sincerely yours, 

T. STARR KING. 

Yellow Springs, Sept. 10, 1854. 
Rev. Austin Craig. 

My dear Sir, — I received your letter of the 4th inst. on 
Saturday, and have kept it two days, hoping to discover by reflec- 
tion the wisest way of answering it. But my reflections have done 
me no good. The letter has fiUed me with sadness. It is conta- 
gious. You were sad when you wrote it, — morbidly so; and I am 
sad when I read it or think of it. You magnify your duties ; and 
then you change the telescope, end for end, to look at your ability 
to perform them. 

The idea that it was possible and probable that you would come 
here has occupied my mind very much for several weeks past. 
30 



466 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

The anticipated influence you would exert on our young men and 
maidens lias filled me with joy ; and when, last week, they came 
together at the beginning of our term, to the number of about 
four hundred, I assure you it was with very vivid delight that I 
looked forward to the influence of your spirit among them. Was 
there ever a more inviting field ? With your eager desire to stamp 
the spirit of Christ upon the human heart, were there ever, or will 
there ever be, more hearts, or more susceptible ones, than these, on 
which to make the impress ? . . . 

I thought, too, that your duties would be light here. You could 
turn the old barrel of sermons over, and begin at the other end. I 
think the people here would want to see you pretty often in the 
church ; but one of your sermons would make forty such as they 
have been accustomed to hear. 

My dear friend, I fear the wind was east when you wrote that 

letter. Do not disappoint us. Prof. Holmes is delighted at the 

idea of your coming ; so are others. As to external attractions, 

we have but few; but for one who lives so much as you do in the 

region of the heart, and who wishes to enlarge that region, I know 

of no place for you so suitable as this. 

Farewell, my friend ! 

HORACE MANN. 

These letters, urging Mr. Craig's removal to Yellow 
Springs, are given for the purpose of showing more clear- 
ly than the words of another can do the principles on 
which Mr. Mann wished to form the religious tone of the 
new institution. Mr. Craig's influence was as peculiar 
as his own religious character. It was not dogmatical, 
but exhortatory. It flowed out of his own religious ex- 
perience with rare eloquence and simplicity, enlisting the 
sympathy and vivifying the answering sentiment in his 
audience with wonderful fervor. Mr. Mann held it in the 
highest estimation ; and his importunity, which might 
otherwise seem unreasonable, can only be thus explained. 
But the bond between Mr. Craig and his own society was 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 467 

one that could hardly be sundered. In arranging the 
religious exercises of the institution, Mr. Mann had en- 
deavored to make them acceptable as well as useful to the 
students. When this subject was discussed in an early 
meeting of the faculty at his house in West Newton, a 
long time before his removal to the West, one of the gen- 
tlemen who had been educated at an Orthodox institu- 
tion in a community where only Orthodox families were 
encouraged to settle, and where all the influences, social 
and educational, were of consequence in one direction, 
and where it can be substantiated by facts that the students 
were actually persecuted into Orthodoxy, or had to flee 
from its borders, as many subsequently did flee to Antioch 
College, reported that it was the custom there to have 
a prayer before each recitation. When asked if such a 
practice might not tend to make young people weary of 
the observance, and even of religion itself, his good sense 
and candor induced him to express a doubt of its wisdom; 
and he was willing to accede to the more rational plans 
of Mr. Mann, who wished to enlist the good-will and sym- 
pathy of the young in all public religious exercises. He 
proposed that daily prayers should take place half an 
hour before entering upon the recitations of the day, in 
order that what he considered the religious rites of health, 
bathing and exercise, might not be neglected, and that no 
one might be inconvenienced by rising at untimely hours, 
or associating cold and discomfort with a rite which 
should have every pleasing association. The wisdom of 
these arrangements was manifested in the result. Absence 
from prayers was very unusual. Monitors appointed for 
the purpose for each class of the college and the prepara- 
tory school made memoranda, which were brought to Mr. 
Mann every Friday. If the absentees marked did not 
bring in their excuses or explanations before that day, their 



468 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

names were read out after prayers on Saturday morning. 
No penalty M'as attached to the violation ; but, as Mr. 
Mann collated the memoranda himself, he had his eye 
upon delinquents, and the loving fear in which his dis- 
approval was held was the strongest incentive to compli- 
ance with all rules. It was decidedly respectable in the 
eyes of the young community not to violate any arrange- 
ment made for the good of all, and this healthy public 
opinion worked wonders. To give vitality to the morning 
exercises, they were administered in turn by the mem- 
bers of the faculty, who in turn took charge of the preach- 
ing. But Mr. Mann often took the opportunity to give a 
word of counsel, reprimand, or exhortation, a few moments 
after prayers ; and on peculiar occasions he thought no 
time so favorable as when the relations between religious 
duty and the culture of their minds had been strongly 
brought before them, in order that knowledge, which is 
power, might not be abused. 

Many students have been heard to say that the prayers 
offered in that chapel by the president were the first 
prayers uttered by another that had ever excited their de- 
votional feelings. No student was obliged to attend either 
the devotional exercises of the day or the sabbath who 
gave conscientious reasons for not so doing. The Quaker 
or the Catholic had a permanent excuse, which would 
have been extended to the Jew if occasion had required. 
How else could it have been an unsectariau institution ? 
The Quakers, thus disarmed, often preferred to give their 
voluntary attendance. 

Yello-w Springs, Oct. 26, 1854. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — . . . There is sometliing ludicrous in 
your asking me to suggest the " pithy " books or trains of thought 
on "prodigal sons" or any other wanderers. I read nothing but 
the monitors' lists of absences, and think of nothing but to keep the 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 469 

team in harness. Was not Mithridates celebrated for driving thii'ty- 
two horses in his chariot at once ? What would he have said of four 
hundred ? I can hardly be said to make any explorations into the 
regions of thought; and, when I do, the elements close behind me 
as behind a fish or an eagle, and leave no traces of their pathway. 

I cannot tell you, my dear friend, how much all the more reflect- 
ing people here were delighted with your visit. I think you gave 
many of them a new idea of the function of an ambassador of Jesus 
Christ. But a plot was formed against you, which may be tempo- 
rarily successful. Mr. wished to obtain an invitation him- 
self. The last evening you were here, when you met company at 
ray house, a regular conspiracy was set on foot to preach up re- 
vivals, and preach down other means of attaining Christian char- 
acter.* There were several speeches, and they grew worse and 
worse to the end of the meeting ; so that, as I was told, the more 
considerate of them were ashamed of the wildfire they had kindled. 
The whole of it was understood to be aimed at you, and designed 
to show the people that they needed such a man as Mr. pro- 
fessed to be. Your friends, seeing what a turn things were taking, 
have thought it not best to urge their preferences at present ; and 

your friend Mr. H is engaged there temporarily, — which 

probably will mean all winter. 

But those whose hearts are earnest for the religious growth of the 

place, and the most subduing influences upon the untamed spirits 

of the youth who resort here for education, will never surrender the 

hope of having you here. I exhort you, therefore, to hold yourself 

in readiness, that, when the time comes, you may be translated here 

as quickly as Elijah was into heaven. . . . 

Yours as ever, most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

After a while, it was thought desirable for Mr. Mann 
to accept some of the invitations to lecture which poured 
in upon him, with a view to interesting the Western pub- 



* Great disappointment had been experienced in the Christian denomination 
because Mr. Mann did not allow revival meetings in the college for the purpose 
of swelling the village church. 



470 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

lie still more in the institution, which showed symptoms 
of dying out for want of the means to live. Not being 
built and endowed with money, but only with promises 
and hopes, the prospects of the faculty in a pecuniary 
point of view grew more and more alarming. Agents 
failed to raise the requisite sums ; notes were protested ; 
enmities began to arise among the neighboring landhold- 
ers, whose promised benevolence to the institution proved 
to be dependent upon the gains they made ; and a check 
was given to the influx of population, which had set so 
strongly into the village after the college was fairly 
opened, because whispers of bankruptcy were heard from 
time to time. It was made a cause of complaint against 
him in after-time, by enemies of the institution and of his 
presence in it, that he was absent on lecturing engage- 
ments ; but he never went without consideration for the 
institution, and his absence was almost always in vaca- 
tion-time. In regard to the fortunes of the college, it 
was a tale of alternate hopes and fears, wearing to the 
strongest nerves, and endured at great expense of vitality. 

PiTTSBUEG, Dec. 9, 1854. 

It is as hard to- keep clean in the physical atmosphere of Pitts- 
bui'g as to retain one's integrity in the moral atmosphere of an 
Atlantic city. 

Dec. 19, 1854. 

This Scranton, where I now am, is near the poetic Valley of 
Wyoming, but is really the valley of stone coal and of iron manu- 
factories, — a new place, grown up out of the mineral riches of the 
earth, just as soon as there was knowledge enough to discover 
them. 

So it will be with all riches,, as soon as they are combined with 
intelligence and skill. This doctrine I apply to our boys. If they 
really have common sense, and we can give them a good education, 
— in which I include a good moral character, — I have no fears 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 471 

about a good share of success for them in the world. I desire that 
they should have the very best education this age of the world can 
supply ; and then, if I leave them this, and integrity and truth, 
and nothing else, I shall go out of the world thinking my duty 
in this respect not ill done. I cannot bear to think of them so 
cramped and straitened for means as I was ; but even that is a 
thousand times better than ignorance ; and ignorance is a calamity 
ten thousand times less to be deprecated than any form of vice. 

Yellow Springs, April 3, 1855. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — I wish to wi-ite a long letter to you, 
but have hardly time to write a short one. The absence of Mr. 

H you know. All our thoughts turned at once to you. But 

I knew your engagements at your place with the beautiful name. 
We tried Dr. SiedhofF: he cannot come. We have made ar- 
rangements for the current term, not in all respects satisfactory. 
One class in Greek is postponed, which I do. not like ; and Mr. 

B takes one. We want a teacher for next September. It is 

almost six months.* You can fill that place. Your general cul- 
ture, your acquaintance with Greek thought, your etymology, your 
Greek philology indeed, fit you admirably for the post. ... I 
cannot tell you how delighted I should be. I would take you, for 
a time at least, into my house. We would build you up bodily 
almost as much as you would us spiritually. 

This letter is not official ; but you know how my heart yearns 

towards you. ... ^ i . ■, 

*' JdiVer and truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, April 17, 1855. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — If I thought you had at last taken the 

position of a final, irrevocable denial and refusal ever to join your 

fortunes with ours, and help us to carry on the great work here 

, begun, I should submit to my sad fate as well as I could, abate a 

* This was tlie amount of time necessary for Mr. Craig to give warning to his 
parish. 



472 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

great portion of my hopes, and labor with my might for the fulfil- 
ment of the rest. 

In reference to the arguments for remaining where you are, or 
coming here, you say that I may hold the scales while you put in 
the weights. But, my dear sir, may I not also see whether the 
weights are correctly or erroneously marked ? If you put in plati- 
num, and call it feathers, or feathers, and call it platinum, may I 
not point out the mistake, and remonstrate against it ? Otherwise 
how am I better than any peg or hook from which to suspend 
them? 

Now, have you not made a mistake something like this — quite 
like it — in relation to the " weights " ? 

In regard to health, would not our milder climate be more con- 
genial to your lungs than the butcherly blasts of the Highlands ? 

In regai-d to society, you know that your nature yearns towards 
the young ; that, reckoning fi-om fossil old age down to indurated 
manhood and to irrepressible youth, the fervor of your affections, 
the vivacity of your love, increase far more than in the ratio that 
the squares of the distance diminish. 

In regard to intellectual companionship, you know that you are 
now just as solitary as you would be on the top of Mont Blanc, 
Nobody comes up to your altitude intellectually. You may pursue 
your studies there ; you may become very learned and wise : but it 
will not be that better sort of wisdom which is found by study and 
contemplation, blended with communion with men. The wisdom 
of the recluse is a very different thing from that of the practical 
moralist or statesman. Now, although we cannot supply you with 
many intellectual companions here at present, yet by and by I hope 
it wiU be otherwise. 

In regard to the good that you can do, I must protest that I 
never saw such false weights used in all my life before. Why, 
seriously and solemnly, had you done this in old times, when bar- 
barous punishments were resorted to, I should have been afraid of 
your ears ; that is, your metaphysical ears. You must know, 
and do know, that whatever wisdom you have, or have not, you do 
retain more of the purity and simplicity and innocence of childhood 
than almost any other man, and therefore are divinely fitted to 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 473 

sympathize with the young while you instruct them, — to go down 
to the lowHness where they dwell in order to lift them to your 
height. I defy your modesty to deny this. 

As for labor, — ministerial labor, — you have now a great store- 
house of thoughts, more or less perfected : what better could you 
do, either for yourself or for others, than to review them, and give 
them, with the improvements of a second edition ? — thus lightening 
labor and enhancing benefits. 

But what we want now in the college is a teacher in Greek for 
the coming year. Where shall we find him ? Was there ever such 
an opening ? All the circumstances point to you ; every thing 
connected with the case shouts, " Austin Craig ! " You can come 
for this year : if then health should fail, or repulsions spring up, 
or the social atmosphere become an east wind, or you should lose 
your interest in children, then you could return. There is no 
doubt, on the least intimation of that kind, your people would keep 
your place open for you. Why, then, will you not come and help 
us for this one year at least '? 

I must go and look after a class : so good-by, and God bless 

you, and us thi'ough you. 

Very truly as ever, _ _ _, , ^^ ,^ , .^.^ 

•^ "^ HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, AprU 30, 1855. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — By your letter of the 22d instant, I see 
I am required to sit down and compute the tables of an almanac, 
showing the declination, right ascension, &c., of your orb for the 
coming year, and for a somewhat indefinite future afterwards. We 
cannot, as yet, calculate the orbit of a human, astronomically, 
quite as well as we can that of Mercury or Neptune. Still, I will 
do my best. At any rate, I will put you in possession of facts 
from which you can cast a horoscope. . . . 

The committee on the subject of teachers is authorized to employ 
a teacher of Greek. . . . There has also been a good deal said 
among the faculty about a chaplain for the college ; and, could we 
get the right man, the feeling amongst those of us who now supply 
the place of one would be unanimous in favor of the demand. They 



474 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

have been deterred, as yet, from bringing forward the subject by 
tlie condition of the college finances, which, we have reason to hope, 
wiU be improved before another year rolls round. 

Both the chaplaincy and the Grreek would furnish easy occupation 
to a man so equipped as you are. . . . The Christian society in this 
place is still without a pastor. The very favorable impression you 
made here last autumn, I believe, would have secured you an invi- 
tation, but for the eager efforts of some who hoped for an invitation 
for themselves if you did not succeed, and who based their opposi- 
tion to you on the ground that you were not evangelical enough in 
regard to the agency of the Holy Spuit in the conversion of men. 
K you could associate with the people here for one year, I feel 
morally sure that a great majority would be for settling you here, 
and the society would receive great accessions. I cannot believe, 
that, once here, you would be allowed to go away until you went 
the uj)per way. I have now stated the facts conscientiously. I 
will not offer any new considerations about your health, your growth, 
your very much enlarged sphere of usefulness, &c., but remain, as 

ever, Yours affectionately, 

HORACE MANN. 



Yellow Springs, June 27, 1S55. 
Rev. a. Ceaig. 

My dear Sir, — I am not dead ; though, from my silence, you 
may think so. 

Our last teiTQ and year closed yesterday ; and now I can breathe 
a little easier. 

When I received your letter some weeks ago, I thought I would 
not reply till I had official notice of your acceptance. But, though 
I have written on the subject several times, I can extort nothing. I 
hear, however, in other ways, that all is settled, and that we are to 
have the blessing of your presence next year. . . . Since I had your 
last letter, I have been so busy with our examination, that I could 
not get a spUnter of time anywhere to float away upon : so you 
must forgive me. It has been said that Grod never will ask what a 
man has done, but what he has done under the circumstances. 

And now, my dear friend, it makes my heart glad that you are 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 475 

to be here. Let us make you as comfortable, bodily, as you can 

be 

Yours as ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yello-w Springs, July 24, 1855. 

My dear Downer, — We have not had one word from you since 
you left. It would have been an act of benevolence native to your 
heart to tell us you got home well ; but I suppose we must all 
give place to coup oil for a time. If it is always to employ your 
thoughts, I shall place it in my anathemas with rum and tobacco. . . . 

Tell me all the Massachusetts news of whatever I feel interested 

in. Was it not good that E — — got stung in the tenderest place 

for his infamous vote ? I cannot but think the tide is turning. 

How the whole present political controversy is going to stand in 

history, I have no more doubt than I have of the progress of time. 

To say that slavery is to be triumphant, and its advocates honored, 

is to say that Judas and Jesus will change places. . . . 

Yours as ever, most truly, 

H. MANN. 

Albany, Nov. 18, 1855. 

I had a delightful visit to Mr. May. I found an invitation there 
from Dr. Wilbur, who is the superintendent of the new establish- 
ment of the State of New York for idiots. We went out there 
to dinner. It is quite a magnificent place, — cost about seventy 
thousand dollars. He has now about eighty idiotic children under 
his care. After dinner, he took us over the whole establishment. 
I have a certain sort of pleasure in viewing such a scene ; but it is 
not an unmingled one. . . . 

Mr. May had invited Mr. Gerritt Smith to meet me ; and, when 
we came back from dinner, we found him waiting for our return. 
We had quite an exhibition of souls to each other. I do not wonder 
that he should be a popular man in spite of some of his unpopular 
views. The next day, we three sat and talked "divine philosophy," 
or something else, which, in the present state of the world, I should 
rather call divine heresy ; and then he went with me a dozen miles 



476 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

on his way home. I omitted to say, that, when I arrived at , a 

lady came to see me. This always puts me in a tremor. I feel 
like the cat in Mother Groose's melodies, or somewhere else, who 
describes so pathetically her terrorification when a bad boy set a dog 
on her. 

" And while I stood trembling, and all of a shake," &c. 

It proved to be . She is a person of good manners and address, 

and, what is quite as important, good dress. 

Boston, Nov. 21, 1855. 

. . . Early this morning, both Howe and Downer called on me ; 
and it was pleasant to see them again. Downer has just been laid 
up for a week with an over-strained brain. I always feel very 
son'owful when I think of his lame brain, because you know it was 
in my belialf that he first disabled it. How much he lost for his 
fidelity to me ! How difierent would his loss have been regarded 
if he had sacrificed liis fidelity, and saved his brain ! * I have two 
letters from you, and one from Craig. How does the good man's 
head do ? I wish it were as well as his heart. 

Boston, Nov. 21, 1855. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — I had a brief note from you ; but it said 
nothing about wliat I care most for, — yourself. You have made us 
all love you so much, that a new obligation is upon you. You must 
take care of yourself for our sakes as well as for your own. The fame 
of your populaiity among the students has reached here, and I am 
congratulated upon it. 

I am on familiar ground again. If Massachusetts is compared 

with most other places, how much there is to admire ! if with the 

ideal, how much to lament ! However much we may advance, 

shall we not always be impatient at the contrast between the actual 

and the ideal ? 

Yours afiectionately, 

HORACE MANN. 

* This allusion is made in reference to Mr. Downer's exertions in the political 
campaign for and against Mr. Mann, which was followed by a severe brain-fever. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 477 

Antioch College, Dec. 24, 1855. 

My dear Me. Parker, — You, of course, are aware that a project 
is on foot by the " Bible Union," so called, for a new translation of 
the Scriptures. I believe the headquarters of this enterprise are at 
Louisville, Ky. At any rate, the "Bible Union Reporter," a 
periodical devoted to the cause, is published there ; I believe also 
at New York. It was started under the auspices of the following 
denominations, — Church of England, Old-school Presbyterians, 
Disciples or Reformers, Methodist-Episcopal Church, Associated 
Reformed Presbyterians, Seventh-day Baptists, Baptists, Glerman 
Reformed Church, — all Trinitarians. But they want the indorse- 
ment of the Unitarians and " Christians;" and they have sent to 
inquire of me who there is in this country or in Europe whose 
knowledge of Grreek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, Syiiac, &c., qualifies 
him for the work. I beheve they will pay a liberal salary for such 
an indorsement. 

I recommended you. They would like to know of some European 

also on whose knowledge and integrity they can rely. If any one 

can name to me such a man, or such men, you can. Will you 

please do it at your earliest convenience? and much oblige 

Yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

P. S. — I was sorry to see so little of you during my recent visit 
to the East. I had, in some respects, a pleasant, in others a sad, 
time. Many of the houses in Boston appeared to me like living 
tombs containing the dishonored dead. Our affairs are looking 
somewhat precarious. Oh, if I could have one half-day's expendi- 
ture of the Crimean war, what a glorious use I would make of it ! 

Ahtioch College, Jan. 1, 1856. 
Hon. GrERRiTT Smith. 

My dear Sir, — After assuring you of my very pleasant recollec- 
tions of our late interview at the house of our common friend Mr. 
May, I wish to say that there is reason to fear the last sands of 
Antioch College are running out. The whole field of the Christian 
denomination has been traversed ; and it is now pretty apparent to 



478 LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 

my mind, that, unless we can have some wholesale instead of retail 
donations, our institution sinks. Our students — about three hun- 
dred on an average since we have been here — are dispersed ; and 
the cause of Liberal Christianity and a free-thoughted education ex- 
pires for an indefinite time for all this Valley of the West. One 
of the most grievous of my regrets at this sad prospect is the appre- 
hension that the exjjeriment (as the world will still call it) of edu- 
cating the sexes together will be rudely interrupted, to be revived 
only in some indefinite future. 

It is now nearly three years since I have been here, all the time 
ai a pecuniary loss to myself; and the professor of Latin, Mr. 
Pennell, whom I stipulated to have in that chair, and who came 
and who remains here solely from his personal relations to me, could 
any day have doubled the salary he is receiving here. We are 
willing, however, to remain. We can do so much as this in behalf 
of the institution ; but we cannot pluck it from the abyss into which 
it thi'eatens to fall. 

I sincerely beheve there has seldom, if ever, been an occasion 
where a deed of pecuniary munificence would be so munificently 
rewarded by the highest and most precious kind of blessings ; 
where a great power might not only be saved to the cause of virtue 
and the progi'ess of truth, but saved from the cause of bigotry, 
sectai'ianism, and all uncharitableness. 

But I am not the judge of other men's responsibilities. They 
are the rightful judges of what shall be saved, and what shall be 
suffered to perish. If they understand the facts, I am bound to 
believe they will judge aright. These facts are, that, if help does 
not come to Antioch College, its fate will be decided in tliirty days, 
and the end of this term will find its walls empty, its halls echoing 
only to the solitary tread of some stranger who comes to inquire 
where the spirit of the Christian denomination is gone ; or, what is 
far more painful to contemplate, echoing to the crowd that will fre- 
quent its apartments to revile the names of those who once held 
possession of it, and to counterwork all their efforts for a truly 
hberal education and a truly liberal Christianity. With the highest 

personal regard, I remain yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 479 

Dansville, Jan. 24, 1856. 

... I wish I had more disposition to look at the ludicrous 
side of personal matters. Perhaps it would save repining and 
querulousness. There are some things for which fun, not phi- 
losophy, was intended as a remedy. He is a wise physician who 
knows how to administer it ; he is a wise man who gathers it co- 
piously into his pharmacopoeia. . . . My causality works actively on 
the children when I am away ; and I am constantly foreshadowing 
what they are to be from what they are. Life is such a unity, that, 
if we could truly see what people are, we should see what they 
would become. . . . 

Boston, (probably) January, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — As I am wi'iting home to Mrs. Mann, I 
must write a word to you, because you are now associated with all 
my ideas of home, — an object standing in the foreground of the 
picture. One of the pleasures of home is that you are there : one 
of the regrets of absence is to be away from you. Your spiritual- 
mindedness is the complement of my nature, — of what I have failed 
to be, though I was fit to be, and ought to have been. But Cal- 
vinism blasphemed all that part of me ; and, if it did not destroy the 
germ, it checked its development. I have something, I hope, of 
the other side, — the intellectual-religious side. What I have, I 
rejoice in ; but it constantly reminds me of what else I ought to 
have. I desire its possession more fully. I do not feel too old to 
cultivate its growth. I am only made to feel and to see how much 
was lost to my nature, because all was done that could be done, 
when I was a child, to educate the love of a heavenly Father out 
of me, instead of educating it into me. This want I feel and 
deplore. You supply its place in me. You call to mind, better 
than any other man I have ever known, what Plato would hold to 
be the " recollections " of a previous state of being. Think, then, 
how dear you are to me ; because I feel, if I could incorporate your 
soul into mine, it would make me whole ; i.e., a whole man. 

I feel constantly, and more and more deeply, what an unspeak- 
able calamity a Calvinistic education is. What a dreadful thing it 
was to me ! If it did not succeed in making me that horrible things 



480 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

a Calvinist, it did succeed in depriving me of that filial love for 
God, tliat tenderness, that sweetness, that intimacy, that desiring, 
nestling love, which I say it is natural the child should feel towards 
a Father who combines all excellence. I see him to be so, logically, 
intellectually, demonstratively ; but when I would embrace him, 
when I would rush into his arras and breathe out unspeakable love 
and adoration, then the grim old Calvinistic spectre thrusts itself 
before me. I am as a frightened child, whose eye, knowledge, ex- 
perience, belief even, are not sufficient to obliterate the image which 
an early fright burnt in upon his soul. I have to reason the old 
image away, and replace it with the loveliness and beauty of another ; 
and in that process, the zeal, the alacrity, the fervor, the sponta- 
neousness, are, partially at least, lost. You help me to recover it, 
and fix the trae image ; and thus you help my spu-itual life. I would 
not part with one idea, one conviction, on the other side of my 
moral life ; but I feel as though I should be a better man, and a 
vastly happier man, if I could add your side to mine. And as 
you have opportunity, my dear ftiend, let me entreat you to impart 
this loving side of religion to ray little boys. Above all treasures, 
I long that they should have this. There can be no such chasm in 
their being as to be without it. For the trials of life, it is the best 
philosophy. For the joys of existence, it is the greatest magnifier ; 
for it magnifies in the line of direction as well as of quantity. 

But I am interrupted by company ; and what will my wife say 
if I write but one gheet to her, and two to you to send in her letter ? 
Good-by, my dear friend. 

HOKACE MANN. 



Mr. Craig had been compelled by ill health to resign 
the professorship of Greek a few montlis before, but had 
remained at Yellow Springs, at Mr. Mann's urgent re- 
quest, as a guest. After his return to Blooming Grove, 
he was invited to a new position in and near the insti- 
tution, as will be seen by the following letters : — 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 481 

Febeuaky", 1856. 

My dear Mk. Ceaig, — I put a single word into Mrs. Mann's 
letter, more for the sake of telling you how Horace Mann loves 
Austin Craig than for any other reason. I had a dolorous jour- 
ney to Meadville, hardly surpassed in perils and tribulations since 
the days of St. Paul. We missed every connection both in 
going and coming. My passage from Erie to Meadville was 
thrown into the night ; and such a night ! The thermometer of 
Meadville, shortly after I arrived there, stood at 31° on the wrong 

side of zero. I labored with Dr. S until about twelve o'clock 

the next night, and then started to return at three in the morn- 
ing. Our driver froze ears, hands, and feet, dreadfully. Now, 
think of something twice as bad, and let that stand for the resi- 
due of the journey. Mr. P has sent word, that, if Dr. S 

does not raise the $28,000, some one else will. 

The strongest desire is expressed for your return. . . . Our 
trustee meeting is on the 12th of March. If we can have your 
affirmative reply before that date, the proper measures can be taken 
by the Board of Trustees for giving you a status in the college as 
College Chaplain, and Lecturer on the Evidences of Christianity, 
Professor of Moral Philosophy, or something of that kind. This 
ought to be ; for you should have an official relation to the stu- 
dents as the basis of your moral one. Grood-by, dear Mr. Craig ; 
and, if my invocation were worth any thing, I would say, God bless 
you! HORACE MANN. 

Antioch College, April 7, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — Herewith I send you the invitation of 
the Christian Society in this place to become their pastor. I need 
not tell you how much pleasure it affi)rds me to do it. 

The circumstances attending the call were such as you could 
hardly wish modified, were they at the full disposal of vanity or 
self-esteem. After your name was introduced at the meeting, it 
was said that you had been elected College Chaplain ; and the 
inquiry was made, how you could be College Chaplain, and pastor 
of the Christian Church also. Omitting what I said about Mr. 

31 



482 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Craig as a man, it was said that the relation which I wished to 
see you fill was that of officiating at the college one-half the day on 
Sundays, when the whole society would be invited to attend there ; 
and the other half of the day at the ehui'ch, when the college would 
attend there. Your morning duties at the chapel would never 
interfere with any thing at the church, and your evening services 
at the church would never interfere with any thing at the chapel. 
We * could take your morning duties at the chapel whenever desi- 
rable. I said that there was a natural alienation between the stvi- 
dents of a college and the villagers where it was situated ; that 
there was less of it here than usually happens ; but that I wanted 
none of it : on the contrary, I wished to cultivate harmony, cor- 
diality, identity of spirit, between us ; and that you were the man 
to do it. 

After the statement had been fully made and understood, the 
vote was taken, and it was unanimous with a single exception, — 

Mr. , who spoke highly of you, but gave as a reason for his 

vote afterwards, that you were opposed to church organization. 

So flattering a call few men have ever had ; and so fair an open- 
ing for usefulness rarely falls to the lot of ministers. I can now 
see nothing of a pubhc or general nature which can stand in the 
way of a noble mission to the people of this place, college and 
village ; and I do not beHeve that you will suffer any thing of a 
personal or private nature to do so. I know not what secrets 
futurity may have behind the curtain ; but I never saw so fair a 
prospect for any man's filling his worldly stomach with the honey 
of success, and his Christian heart with the rewards of faithful 
ministrations in divine things, as now opens before you. 

The church will be completed about the first of May. Do not, 
I beseech you, allow the ceremony of dedication to pass by without 
your presence. Let all future associations connected with the house 
be seen through the medium of that beautiful light. Even if you 
must go back for any period, longer or shorter, — though I sincerely 
hope not, at least during our present term, — come and be pres- 
ent, be installed, at the time of the dedication of the house; and 

. * The faculty. There was only one Sunday service at the chapel. — Ed, 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 483 

then, if absolutely necessary, I doubt not you can obtain leave of 
absence. But I want that radiant point in the sky at that place, 
where it will forever be so conspicuous. 

. . . We are all well, thanks to the good laws of Grod which 
we are trying to worship him by obeying. We have about sixty 
new students this term, notwithstanding all the efforts of the un- 
godly to keep them away. . , . 

I am, as ever, yours devotedly, 

HOEACE MANN. 

P. S. — You cannot possibly forget where your home is when 
you come. 

Yellow Springs, April 30, 1856. 
Rev. Austin Ckaig, 

My dear Sir, — You have apparent reason, at least, to think 
the committee inexcusably tardy in answering your letter of the 
12th inst. . . . One of the committee has been unwell ; and acci- 
dent has again and again prevented our meeting according to 
appointment. Yesterday afternoon we were together, and came 
unanimously to the following conclusions. . . . These are the three 
points presented to our consideration by your letter ; and we think 
that our propositions correspond with your expressed wishes. 

The committee strongly desire that you should be present at the 
dedication of the house. Its completion has been delayed longer 
than was expected. It will now probably be ready in two or three 
weeks ; but we would rather wait a month, perhaps even more, 
than not to have you participate in those services, which will be 
so interesting to us. 

Hoping that these propositions may be acceptable to you, and 
that an arrangement will be effected mutually promotive of the 
highest moral and religious welfare of both pastor and people, 
I remain, as ever, most truly your friend, 

HORACE MANN, for the Committee. 

Antioch College, Yellow Speings, May 4, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Combe, — What will you do with a man who 
repents and sins again, and repents and sins again ? Christ's rule 
is to forgive him seventy times seven times. And now, as I have 



484 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

not done this more than half seventy times seven, I have still 
somewhat of a margin left for continued offending. My dear friend, 
you must come and watch me a day, and see what I have to do ; 
and then you would not only grant amnesty for all the past, but 
free Popish indulgences as to the future. But from all this how 
can you infer forgetfuhiess ? How can I forget you, who have done 
my mind more good than any other living man, — a hundred times 
more ?- I not only think of you, remembering you, but, in a very 
important and extensive sense, / am you. You are reproduced 
in my views of life (though not in my views of death), and in 
that understanding of the wisdom and ways of Providence which 
vindicates God to man. I received your letter of April 4 two or 
thi'ee days ago ; and my first impulse was to answer it instanter, 
and dispel any approaching shadow of a suspicion that I can ever 
lose my regard, my affection, for you. But I thought I would wait 
till to-day ; because to-day, according to the old family Bible, I am 
sixty years old. This event excites in my mind a strangely mingled 
feeUng, made up of joy and pain, to say nothing of a readiness or 
unreadiness to die. I am too intensely interested ia the great 
questions of human progress, of humanity itself, to be willing to 
quit the field in this stage of the conflict. The vital questions of 
pauperism, temperance, slavery, peace, and education, covering 
as they do many digits of the orb of human happiness, I cannot 
rehnquish, I cannot leave, without a feeling of the description of 
breaking heart-strings from objects which they have intwined. You 
may tell me the work wiU go on, and perhaps it will ; but I want 
it should go on in my day. I long to see it. I want to help it, to 
expend myself upon it ; and life seems bereaved of its noblest 
functions and faculties if it fails in this. I feel for these causes as 
a fond father feels for his children, whom he dreads to leave till 
they are out of moral danger, and have the common securities and 
guaranties for future safety and welfare. But I cannot stop the 
earth in its orbit, and that is bearing me round to the point where 
my participation in its struggles must come to an end. From all 
this, there is but one moral to be drawn, — to redeem the time that 
still remains, be it longer or shorter. But, oh ! if with my present 
views I could be set back again to the age of twenty, how gladly 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 485 

would I release all that Divine Groodness, in the exercise of his 
highest prerogative of love, can bestow upon me elsewhere ! 

Our college is most prosperous in all respects but the want of 
money. By a great want of wisdom, if not by something worse, we 
were involved in great debts at the very outset; and the books and 
papers were in such a condition, that our embarrassment was not 
known. Revelation after revelation first startled, then astonished, 
then overwhelmed us. As time revealed deeper and deeper diffi- 
culties, the fair-weather friends of the institution, one after another, 
dropped off, or were turned into antagonists and maligners. Within 
the last three months, however, a rally has been made ; and we now 
have hopes that the college will be lifted out of the slough of insol- 
vency. When I feel our wants, and see to what beneficent uses we 
could appropriate money, it makes me desire wealth, and it gives 
me feelings of intenser condemnation for the manner in which so 
much wealth is spent. What untold blessings for the present and 
the future could be secured here by a hundred thousand dollars I 
and yet there is not a day in which many times a hundred thousand 
dollars are not uselessly, nay injuriously, spent in all the great 
cities of the world. 

. . . We are politically in a very excited condition. The step 
about Kansas, and the approaching Presidential election, will prob- 
ably create a fiercer contest than any yet known to our political an- 
nals. In Kansas, the attempt will be made, and probably enforced 
by arms, to maintain the fraudulent government of the " Border 
Ruffians." On the other hand, it seems impossible to avoid resist- 
ance. Yesterday's telegraph informs us that the sheriff of the 
usurping government was shot. The United-States army will 
doubtless be called in. The President will use his utmost prerog- 
ative to maintain the tyranny; for, should he omit a single effort, 
his nomination for re-election would be lost ; and he is a man who 
would sacrifice a state or a country, a zone or a zodiac, for selfish- 
ness. 

What a ridiculous ado they make in France about six pounds of 
baby ! Our births are of human liberty or bondage ! . . . 



486 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, May 16, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — We have concluded to dedicate the 
church on the second Sunday in June, — the eighth day of that 
month. It is the unanimous wish of the committee that you should 
preach the Dedication Sermon; and you are hereby invited to 
do it. . . . 

And now, my dear friend, how could you write me so incomplete 
a letter as yours of the 7th instant ? The people here are all agony 
to know "whether Mr. Craig accepts the invitation to settle with 
vs." I told them, that, by the middle of this week, we should un- 
doubtedly hear from you. That time came, and your letter, but 
not a word about any thing beyond beiag present at the dedication. 
That, of course, would be most agreeable, but is not the thing. . . . 
The flock is without a head. What wolves will invade the fold, if 
left in this condition for six months, who can tell ? . . . 

My dear friend, let me exhort you to do two things. Come and 
speak for us in the chapel, Sunday, June 1 ; dedicate the new 
house, and be installed as pastor of the church here the next 
sabbath; and, having got released from what you call " home," let 
us make you another, and, for the good you can do, a better home. 
I hope to hear from you soon. With best regards from all, 
I am, as ever, most sincerely yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, May 27, 1856. 

My dear Sumner, — I have just returned from an educational 
visit to St. Louis, Mo., — the eastern, not the western, end of the 
State. 

We are all not only shocked at the outrage committed upon you, 
but we are wounded in your wounds, and bleed in your bleeding. 

Since I left Washington, March 4, 1853, I do not know as I 
have ever felt a desire to be there again till now. But I suppose, 
if God meant to save my life, he found it necessary to keep me 
away. 

I have only seen the newspaper accounts of your speech. I long 
to see the fall report. Altogether the thing has produced a great 



LIFE OF HOKACE MANN. 487 

sensation, — as great for good as Webster's 7tli of March speech 
for evil. How the diabolical consequences of that speech are de- 
veloping themselves ! How every year vindicates our course at 
that time ! The years are our avengers, and will continue to be. 

In your full report, why will you not quote the very Memorial 
of South Carolina to the Continental Congress, asking to be re- 
lieved from furnishing her quota of men, because of her dangerous 
population at home ? . . . 

Yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



Antioch College, June 16, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Parker, — I hear of you occasionally through the 
newspapers, when, like old Thor, you seize a Norway pine, and 
smite the wicked therewith ; but I hear from you in no other way. 

I will not intimate that you have forgotten me or ours, because I 
know how many men's work you have to do. It would give me 
great pleasure to hear from you. Working here, as it were, in soli- 
tude, and with a settled conviction that my labors and sacrifices will 
not be appreciated until I am removed from the scene of action, it 
would give me great satisfaction to hear a friendly voice from my 
old home. 

Now the political Christ is crucified, what do the Judases who 
betrayed him say for themselves ? I fear they have not even the 
one merit of their prototype, — repentance. 

I have a strong presentiment that an excursion up the Lakes 

would be good for what little of mortality is left me, and that it 

would be far better if I could get some "glorious fellow" to go 

with me. Have you a curiosity, or a health-hoping policy, which 

would lead you in the same direction ? I wrote to Downer to ask 

you ; but he replies that he has not seen you. I hope you feel a 

disposition to see the great works of God in the Great Lakes. 

Very truly, as ever, 

HORACE MANN. 



488 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Antioch College, Yellow Springs, June 18, 1866. 
Kev. Daniel Austin. 

My dear Sir, — With much surprise and pleasure I have re- 
ceived from Mr. 0. P. T of Salisbury, Mass., the sum of five 

dollars, placed in his hands by you, to be forwarded to me to be 
invested in some token of remembrance. 

To be remembered by any one on whom we have conferi'ed obli- 
gations is very grateful to our feelings; but to be remembered 
without obligation by a gentleman of your character and standing, 
seems, indeed, an instance of the laudari a uno laudato. 

First, Please accept my very sincere thanks for your flattering re- 
membrance ; and, 

Second, Let me tell you what I have ventured to do with the 
money. 

We have many poor students here who are working their passage 
through college by the greatest frugality, industry, and effort. The 
condition of some of them, manfully struggling against adverse cir- 
cumstances, makes strong appeals to my sympathy ; and I cannot 
refrain from giving a considerable amount, every year, for the relief 
and reward of such noble exertions. We are now about closing 
the year, and my means for this pui'pose were really exhausted. 

The day I received your letter, a young man came to me, saying 
he had found the bottom of his pocket, and must absolutely leave. 
Five dollars would cany him through this term ; but five dollars 
were as impossible to him as world-making. I ventured to give him 
your five dollars. I thought it would give us both more pleasure 
than to put it in any book or other token or memorial. I thought 
it would sanctify it. If you do not approve, I will still do as 
proposed. 

And now, my dear sir, I wish you knew more of our institution 
here, and of our plans. I wish I could have the pleasure of seeing 
you here. In all this Great West, ours is the only institution, of 
a first-class character, which is not, directly or indirectly, under the 
influence of the old-school theology ; and though the mass of the 
people here are more liberal-minded and free-though ted, more open 
and receptive and less cast-irony, than the corresponding classes in 
the East, yet the ministers are more narrow and bigoted. Our col- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 489 

lege, therefore, is really like breaking a hole in the Chinese Wall. 
It lets in the hght of religious civilization where it never shone 
before. Think of this great State, with more than two millions of 
inhabitants, and only one Unitarian society ! The Christians, how- 
ever, are the best medium through which to introduce a more liber- 
al Christianity. 

I am, dear sir, in great haste, very truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Boston, June 27, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Mann, — Don't think that your labors are ob- 
scure, or likely to be forgotten in this generation, or for many that 
are to come. Your works are written all over the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, and are in no danger of being forgotten. I know 
how arduous your position is ; also how unpleasant much of the 
work must be. I fancy you now and then feel a little longing after 
the well-cultivated men and women whom you left behind at the 
East, and find none to supply in Ohio. But the fresh presence of 
young people is a compensation. 

What a state of things we have now in politics ! — the beginning 
of the end. I take it we can elect Fremont : if so, the battle is 
fought, and the worst part of the contest is over. If Buchanan is 
chosen, see what follows ! The principles of the administration will 
be the same as now ; the measures the same ; the mode of applying 
the principles and executing the measures will be slightly altered, — 
no more. It is plain that another such administration would ruin 
the country for men like those of Middlesex County, Mass. I don't 
think the people will see themselves conquered by three hundred 
and fifty thousand slaveholders, headed by an old bachelor. If Bu- 
chanan is elected, I don't beheve the Union holds out three years. 
I shall go for dissolution. 

I wish I could go to the Lakes with you. But a family of inti- 
mate friends will sail for Europe the 25th of August, to be absent 
for three years. I want to see them all I can this summer: so we 
shall all go to Newton Corner, and live near by ; else I should 
do up my "unpretending luggage," and be off to Lake Superior 
with you. 



490 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

I sent you a little sermon for the Sunday after Mr. Brooks 
struck Sumner ; and have another pamphlet in press, containing two 
speeches made at New York a month ago ; which please accept. 

On the 6th July, I shall preach on The Prospect loith Us, and 
perhaps print. July 8 I go to New- York Central University, at 
3Iacgrawville, somewhere in New York, and deliver an address on 
The Function of the Scholar in a Democracy. 

I wish I was where I could see you often, but am glad to know 

that you are well. So are we all. With best regards from all to 

all, believe me Yours ever truly, 

THEODORE PARKER. 

Yellow Springs, July 3, 1856. 

My dear Mk. Craig, — I received yours of June 23 a week 
ago, and have been most anxiously awaiting intelligence from your 
society. To-day it has come, and is, as doubtless you both know 
and knew, in the negative ! 

Is this irreversible ? If so, my first impulse is to resign at once, 
and leave. I know the consequences : not that my withdrawing 
would be of any account ; but, if I should go, Mr. Pennell and 

R , of coui'se, would not remain a day. This would be fatal to 

the concern. 

I should regard this result more than I can express. I think I 
can sacrifice my own ease and emolument for the sake of success in 
accomplishing the great enterprise for which I came out here ; but 
if no one else will make any sacrifice for the welfare of the college, 

and if we are to have Mr. as pastor of the church, or any one 

like him, then I feel as though the success of the college itself, at 
least under my administration, is jeoparded, and the only motive 
which I have for staying here is gone. Ton supplied all conditions. 
Your refusal to come leaves all conditions unsupplied. I wiite in 
haste and sadness, but am, as ever, Truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

P. S. — If the refusal of the society is peremptory, is it peremp- 
tory after six months from the time you notify ? I shall await with 
great anxiety an answer to this inquiry. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 491 

Yellow Speings, July 5, 1856. 

To Mrs. Mann, in Boston. — It is Wednesday, and already 
your going seems like some far-off event away in the dim distance. 
Should the boys come back fall grown into manhood, and you gray, 
tottering, and decrepit, it would hardly seem longer. It seems long 
from morning till night, and from night till morning ; only I seem 
to do nothing, and this makes it like a blank. 

wrote me about a Mv. Mathematical H , or an H of 

mathematics ; saying it was rumored that our mathematical Magnus 
did not give satisfaction, and proposing this German in his place. 
What a howl there would be through all Zion if the glimmering of 
a suggestion were made that he were not princeps inter mathema- 
ticos, and that his place should be supplied by one of the world's 
people ! . . . One man " di'iven into exile," one woman " forbidden 
the use of fire and water," another " discharged," another " abused 
and sent off; " and now the mathematical pyramid, the very Cheops 
of the cause, to be supplanted by that Grerman-sounding name, prob- 
ably, doubtless, undoubtedly, certainly, the very incarnate of Grer- 
man rationalism, neology, atheism ! — ay, worse than atheism ; for 
who knows but he is an unbeliever in the Devil ? Consider the 
rest of the sheet filled with exclamation-points. I do not dare 
to sign my name to this sheet, though it mentions treason only to 
rebuke it. 

Mackinaw, Mich., Aug. 7, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — Yours of July 20 has been forwarded 
to me at this place, whither I have come in search of the fugitive, 
health ; at least, to escape from the debilitations of our summer 
heats. I wish you were here. It is a fortnight to-day since we 
arrived ; and such paradisiacal weather as we have had ! just warm 
enough not to be cold, and just cold enough not to be warm. Only 
one thing is wanting to me, and I should thrive like a green bay- 
tree ; and that is the home diet. 

Last night we had some commotion among the elements ; and to- 
day it is cloudy, and a fire is comfortable. But a few whiffs of 
this air would make yoiir lungs give a hygienic laugh. I am sorry 
to hear there are any symptoms in your throat or elsewhere which 



492 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

give you present discomfort or forebodings. I am afraid of that 
Eastern climate for your lungs. I do not believe that air wiU ever 
agree with you. It requires a Boreas to blow it, and none but a 
Boreas can breathe it. You are an exotic in it ; and even hot- 
houses vnll not save you, I fear. . . . 

My dear friend, you must answer me one question ; for it will be 
an element in coming to conclusions that now impend. It is no 
other than the question I put you before : Suppose the six months 
during which you feel yourself bound to the Blooming-Grove 
Society to be at an end, would you, or would you not, come to Yel- 
low Springs ? That is the question. Why should you not answer 
it ? It is an important element at least, if not a decisive one, in 
regard to ulterior things. I came here with great hopes, ready to 
put forth my best efforts, ready to make any sacrifices probably 
resulting in success. If I am to fail, I have already sacrificed too 
much ; and the sooner I stop, the more strength I shall have for 
something else. Let me hear from you by the time I get home, 
which I hope will be about the 20th inst. 

Yours lovingly, 

HORACE MANN. 

Mr. Mann's visit to Mackinaw, owing to bad living 
and much depression of spirits while absent from his 
family, and with the care of an invalid relative instead 
of cheerful companions, was not productive of as much 
benefit as he had hoped ; and an unfortunate fall just 
after his return, which produced violent effects at the 
moment, and whose consequences reduced him for a time 
in flesh and strength before his family could reach him 
from a visit to the East, cancelled what little benefit 
remained from the cooler atmosphere, and absence from 
painful scenes. He entered upon the great labors of the 
next college-year weary and unrefreshed, and with added 
duties which did not legitimately belong to his office as 
president. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 493 

Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Aug. 25, 1856. 
Kev. D. Austin. 

My dear Sir, — Your letter, full of kind expressions, of which 
I desire to be worthy, rather than flatter myself that I am so, is 
just received. Among life's draughts of vinegar, it is very pleasant 
now and then to get a sip of honey. 

I believed you would ratify the use I made of your kind remem- 
brancer, and I am glad to have you do so. I assure you it is 
transmuted into better material than any other thing I could have 
changed it for. I think I could make a glorious financiering busi- 
ness of it, could I be allowed, by a divine alchemy, to transmute 
into knowledge that gold which is now worse than lost in pamper- 
ing vanity and pride, and thus change that knowledge into wisdom 
and virtue. 

Our college is founded on scholarships, — a very common method 
at the West, but not a very sound one ; at least, without some addi- 
tional support. Each owner of a scholarship is entitled to a vote 
in electing the College Board of Trustees, and to keep one pupil 
at college free from tuition-charges. This may answer where the 
number of scholarships sold is very large, and only a small portion 
of them represented by pupils ; for then we should have the income 
of the several unrepresented scholarships to support the one pupil 
who claims tuition under one. But if the number of scholarships 
sold is small, and the institution is popular, then most of the schol- 
arships will be represented. Whence, in that case, is the fund to 
support the institution to be derived ? It is obvious, that, unless it 
can have some endowment to repair to, it must fail. 

I am greatly obliged to you for your kind offer to give the sum 
of fifty dollars annually for five years to students at once deserving 
and indigent. But, my dear sir, will you pardon me for making a 
suggestion or two here ? We have many students who are poor ; 
and I suppose I have given at least two hundred dollars a year, 
since I have been here, to aid this class. But I invariably do it in 
such a manner, that no one but the recipient knows, and some- 
times not he or she, where it comes from. 

We have nothing, in our whole institution, of the nature of prizes, 
honors, parts, medals, or any apparatus or artificial system of means 



494 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

which stu-s up in the bosoms of the members of our family the un- 
holy fires of emulation. 

I hold and always have held it to be unchristian to place two 
childi'en or youth in such relation to each other, that, if one wins, 
the other must lose. So placed, what scholars gain in intellect, 
yea, and a thousand times more, they lose in virtue. We rely on 
the love of knowledge, and the natural advantages which its pos- 
session confers ; and we find that enough. I have occasion to use 
the curb quite as often as the spur. 

Now, what could be done with our whole system, should your 
idea of a bonus, or of any competition, be adopted ? Fifty dollars 
too, which would pay the whole tuition of only four students, 
might, if distributed in sums of five or ten dollars according to 
circumstances, help more. Put enough of the vitalizing oxygen 
into the lungs of each swimmer to buoy him up, and let him swim 
the rest. Let me, then, suggest that you put your fifty dollars into 
the hands of some member of our faculty, or of our Board of 
Trustees, many of whom would hardly be less judicious than your- 
self; and let it be distributed, according to exigencies as they arise, 
without the knowledge of any one but the recipient, and with none 
of the heart-burnings and jealousies and surmises of favoritism 
which every other method involves. I have been almoner in one 
or two such cases with great efiect. When a poor student receives 
a small sum of money unexpectedly, just enough to meet a dreaded 
emergency, it seems- a thousand times more as if it came straight 
from Grod than if he had been wrestling for it in the ring, and 
had won it as a trophy. I confess I have seen so many dismal 
forebodings removed, so much joy occasioned, even by a small 
amount of money, — tears of apprehension suddenly changed into 
tears of joy, — that I have envied the rich their powers of benefi- 
cence, with all its reflected happiness. . . . 

You speak of remembering Antioch in your will. I sincerely 
hope so ; yet I am about to interpose a caution. Antioch is now 
the only first-class college in all the West that is really an unsecta- 
rian institution ; where truth, and nobody's or party's ism, is the 
object. There are, it is true, some State institutions which profess 
to be free from proselyting instrumentalities ; but I believe, that, 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 495 

■witliout exception, tliey are all under tlie control of men who hold 
as truth something which they have prejudged to be true. I do not 
believe, that, in all the West, there is such a Sunday-school class as 
I teach here. We believe the elements of truth are in the Bible, 
in the Grospels, in the life of Jesus Christ ; and we mean to find 
them there. 

This freedom from proselytisra our college recognizes and avows ; 
and I trust it will always be able to live up to its doctrines. But 
how frail is human nature ! how weak to execute the good resolu- 
tions it had strength enough only to form ! With all my love for 
Antioch College, — and its prosperity is now the ambition of my 
life, — I would not give it any very large donation, one after the 
Lawrence standard of magnitude, absolutely and outright. I 
would put it into the hands of trustees, or a trustee, to be given to 
the college if it held on to its avowals of non-sectarian, non-prose- 
lyting administration. 

One thing we want now and severely, — an exercising hall or 
gymnasium, especially for our young ladies. We pay far more 
attention to physical education than any other institution (except 
mihtary ones) that I know of in the world. Oh, if some good man 
— so much the better if it were a good woman — would give me 
two or three thousand dollars ! I know it would make the bones 
in their own graves rest easier, and sleep a serener sleep, could they 
but feel how much health and happiness, how much physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral power, such a structure would create. But 
pardon me, my dear sir. I am running on unconsciously and un- 
endingly. Your kind letter, amid my many cares and labors and 
trials, has opened my heart and loosed my tongue. You see this 
letter, from its very nature, is private ; but I am hereafter publicly 

your friend, 

HOEACE MANN. 

Yellow Speings, Sept. 9, 1856. 

My very dear Sumner, — I have to-day the great pleasure 
of hearing from you under your own hand. May God surround 
you with healing influences, and bless them ! It is impossible to 
tell you how much we have felt for you, — sorrow, admiration, hope, 



496 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

affection, for you ; grief, indignation, contempt, abhorrence, for the 
malefactor. Mrs. IMann read one account of the outrage, and could 
never read another. She said she felt the concussion of the blows 
all through her brain. I have not written you, because I felt that 
keeping myself away from all claim to your time or attention was 
the greatest kindness I could do to you. I am glad to be restored 
to the privilege of writing to you again. 

Now comes your danger, — the danger of getting well too fast, 
— of not patiently awaiting the slow recuperative processes of 
Nature. Your brain must all be made over again. It took nine 
months to make it the first time ; and then it was not worth much 
untU it had been some years in ripening and maturing. Do not, 
then, I beseech you, think that it can be made all over again and 
set to work in a hurry. Festina lente. I can hardly believe that 
the cause in Massachusetts needs your efforts. Pennsylvania is the 
battle-ground, the Flanders between North and South. I wish you 
could stand on one of the peaks of the AUeghanies, and make your 
voice heard from the Ohio to the Delaware. 

Sumner, how good it feels to hear the tramp of this army of 
freemen ! Every new battahon, as it comes into line, every shout 
of its aroused and cheering columns, heals a wound which the atroci- 
ties of 1850 inflicted upon my soul. Sweet is the anodyne after 
such torture ! 

When the healing influences of time have given you permission 
to buckle on your armor again, then do it ; but do not anticipate 
your hour. Seek the noblest revenge, which is strength. 

My work is different from yours ; but, in some humble way, it 
conduces to the same end. Principles are the seeds to be sown in 
this field of time. The order of Nature, which is God's providence, 
will mature the fruit. I feel as if I were never doing more of this 
work than now. 

. . . Come and stay with us a month. We will nurse you like 
a baby, on pap ; or feed you like a hero, on lion. 

With best regards from Mrs. Mann, I am yours ever, 

HORACE MANN. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 497 

Antioch College, Sept, 29, 1856. 
Rev. D. Austin. 

My DEAR Sir, — Your favor of the 17tli instant I received on 
Saturday last. I am greatly obliged to you for it. In the midst 
of the obstacles which I have to encounter here, I may be supposed 
to need the encouraging words of friends as much as the most indi- 
gent student needs the "material aid;" one instalment of which 
• your letter contained, and others promised. I hope you will give 
me credit for being wise enough not to consider any thing " small " 
which can do good. I have undoubting confidence in your wise 
apportionment of your means, and I think I can assure you that 
what you may scatter here will be sown on good ground. 

You intimate an intention of remembering the college by bequest, 
provided it shall continue to be administered "without isms (espe- 
cially sectarianism, I tnist) and without prizes; " and you ask me 
to name a person or persons to be invested with power to decide the 
question, whether, at the time the bequest may fall due, the college 
is entitled to receive it. I thank you sincerely for this wise provi- 
sion. In the iiliberality of sects, and in the partisan contests for 
superiority, no sect is beyond the need of such salutary restraints. 
It is most agreeable to me also to learn that we agree in opinion 
respecting the immoral tendency of prizes, honors, &c. I do not 
believe that such stimulants are the best, even for making philoso- 
phers : I am sure they are not for making Christians. 

In compliance with your request, I give you the names of Dr. S. 
Gr. Howe of Boston, and Rev. Henry W. Bellows of New York, as 
suitable persons to determine whether this institution is faithful or 
faithless to its avowals. 

I fear I may have said too much to you on the subject of a gym- 
nasium. I am so anxious to obtain one, that I may be tempted to 
overstep the limits of propriety in regard to the means. If I have 
done so in this case, the motive must make what atonement it can 
for the act. I thank you for the generous and confiding tone of 
your letter. I will endeavor to prove to you that your confidence 
has not been misplaced. 

With best regards, I remain very truly yours, &c., 

HORACE MANN. 
32 



498 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, Oct. 20, 1856. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — Your having been here, and being gone, 
and being going to be gone, seem to me like a sad and doleful 
dream. Then comes the consciousness that it is not a dream, but a 
reality. . . . Mr. Doherty got the Christian Church together on 
Sunday a week ago, and told them, that, if they would raise four 
hundred dollars, he would see the pulpit supplied for a year. Nearly 
five hundred dollars were promptly raised ; and so he stands respon- 
sible for the facit per alium aut facit per se for the nest twelve- 
month. 

We have a large entering class, but not so many young ladies 
in proportion as heretofore ; doubtless owing to the repellent power 
of the infernal Nichols.* Mr. Pennell starts for St. Louis to- 
mon'ow : so you hear another sound of disintegration. . . . 

Your admirers here have been to me several times to know what 
they should do with that money. One of the committee introduced 
the subject to me again since the receipt of your last letter. I said 
I thought it would be most agreeable to you to have it expended 
for some permanent object of ornament or utility, to be attached to 
the college as a remembrance of you ; and I mentioned a chandelier. 
How emblematic of you would a great lighted chandelier be ! Shall 
the money be so expended ? If Mrs. Mann were here, she would 
send her regards along with mine. As she is not, I send double. 

HORACE MANN. 



Yellow Springs, Dec. 10, 1856. 

My dear Downer, — ... We closed our fall term yesterday. 
We have had a prosperous term. We are getting more and more 
of an esprit de corps of the right sort among our young people. 
High hopes and high aims are, I think, gradually supplanting low 
ones. I can never get the institution, I suppose, fully up to my 
ideal ; but I can say it is advancing towards it. 

With kindest regards from all to all, I remain yours as ever, 

H. MANN. 
* Dr. Gove Nichols, who established himself for a time in the neighborhood. 



LTPE OP HORACE MANN. 499 

Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Dec. 10, 1856. 
To Kev. Cyrus Pierce. 

Mr DEAR Mr. Pierce, — Were I to sit down to write you all 
I want to say, I must secure much time and much paper. But be 
assured I think of you often, and always with affection. My 
unbroken round of engagements, however, forces me to commit the 
almost impious act of sacrificing the demands of friendship. I de- 
sire exceedingly to see you, and have that opportunity to pour out 
and to take in which a personal interview alone can give. 

I hear you have discontinued your relations to the school at 
West Newton. I am glad of it. If any person ought to stand on 
the "Emeritus" roll, it is Cyrus Pierce. Now you are floating, 
why cannot you suffer the gales of affection to blow you and Mrs. 
Pierce hitherward ? I think we are doing something of a work 
here : it cannot in all respects come up to your high standard ; 
but, compared with the standard that has existed here hitherto, it is 
respectable. I have few things to look back upon with compla- 
cency during my past life ; but I do really think I have as much 
reason to hope for good from my present labors as from any in 
which I was ever engaged. I have a difficult navigation, as diffi- 
cult as the first few years of my Secretaryship. Whether I shall 
have such help as to be able to ride out the storm, remains to be 
seen; but, if that can be the case, I feel fully convinced that a 
glorious voyage awaits the craft, and that she will scatter rich 
freight upon a thousand shores long after the stone has been 
fastened to my feet, and I have been thrown overboard. But there 
is one gloomy idea that haunts my mind, and it is one which can 
find no remedy or hope. I feel every day more and more keenly 
that I must soon retire from the field of action, while at the same 
time my zeal grows and glows to continue the contest with evil. I 
love the good causes more than ever ; more than ever I want to 
fight for them : and the most painful idea connected with death is 
that I must be at most a looker-on, and cannot be a participator. 
How do you feel ? Are you willing to retire ? Are you patient 
under the long delays of Providence? Some one says, "Grod is 
never in a hurry." Well, if with him a thousand years are as one 
day, he can afibrd to wait. But we — how can we be expected to 



500 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

wait ? I know it is in vain to straggle with destiny. It seems to 
me just as vain to straggle against this vehement desire to see the 
contest out. 

Mr. Pennell has left us, — a great loss to us. He has gone 
into the high school at St. Louis at a salary of $2,500 a year ! 
" The woi-ld does move, though." I went out there last spring to 
attend a State Educational Convention, and form a State Teachers' 
Association. I found the city teachers, who are mostly Eastern 
men, all alive on the subject. They were like dry fuel, fitly laid, 
and only needing a breath to kindle them. It was my good luck 
to be that breath, and they are now shining brilliantly. The city 
have not only voted this $2,500 for the principal of their high 
school, but the same sum for the salary of a principal of a Normal 
school ; and they gave me carte blanche to appoint both. Whom 
can I find for the Normal school ? 

I am writing to Mr. probably for the last time. Since his 

prosperity, he has changed his whole manner and relationship to me. 
I exerted myself as a brother to help him up. Up,\xQ forgets me. 
So goes the world, — at least many persons in it. Grod help us to 
make the world better ! 

With best love from Mrs. Mann and myself to Mrs. Pierce 

and the Nestor of schoolmasters, 

I am, as ever, yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, Sept. 5, 1856. 

My deak Mr. Craig, — I have received your late letter ex- 
tinguishing all my hopes. I have no doubt of your being able to 
justify to your own conscience the conclusion to which you have 
come. It would, indeed, be most lamentable, if, to the indescriba- 
ble evils consequent upon your decision, that of any conscious 
interference of choice with duty were added. 

I will now say in strictest confidence to you what I have never 
said to any living being before, not even to my wife, — that the 
probability of my continuing for any length of time in my present 
position is very slight. 

Mr. Pennell is about to leave us; and there goes one of the 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 501 

corner-stones of the college. He came here from a salary of 
$1,300, with an assurance that it should soon be raised to $1,500. 
He afterwards had an offer of $1,600, which he refused. Last 
spring he had an offer of $2,000 ; which also, for the sake of the 
cause here and for my sake, he declined. And now he yields to 
an offer of $2,500 from St. Louis. Things were assuming such a 
desperate aspect here, that I did not think he ought to hazard the 
means of supporting his family longer, either for his personal friend- 
ship for me, or for the sake of our doubtful enterprise here. 

The trustees have just closed their annual meeting. Mr. 

Zachos is turned out ; Mr, B put in his place, — one of the 

best men we could have giving place to — another. Clandestine 
measures had been most extensively and thoroughly taken to preju- 
dice the minds of the trustees against Mr. Zachos ; and they came 
mth a resolution which no arguments or expostulations that I, or 
those of us who were on the ground, could overcome. They could 
hardly have found a more objectionable man than their appointee. 
It would have the appearance of rashness, and perhaps of passion, 
had I resigned at once ; and I shall do nothing which will tend 
to prejudice the institution after I leave it. 

On the other hand, there is now a chance that our debts will all 
be paid by the first of next January. [This hope proved falla- 
cious. — Ed.] . . . 

Prospects before us, or rather before me, lower as with ven- 
geance. I know not what will come ; but one thing I mean, at all 
events, to do, — to keep a conscience void of offence towards God 

and man. Your always friend, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, Jan. 24, 1857. 

My dear Sumner, — I read with avidity every thing I see 
about you ; but, while all that pertains to your enduring interests 
exceeds what even a sanguine friendship would dare to hope, I 
grieve that your health and physical resources remain as they are. 
You must be careful. Should Boreas get into a shepherd's pipe, 
would he not rend it into a thousand splinters? Heal your body, 
and your soul will do well enough. , . . 



502 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

When you have time and strength, do write to me ; and mean- 
while believe me, as ever, 

Most truly yours, HORACE MANN. 

April 6, 1857. 

My dear, ever dear Mr. Craig, — Your letter from Cairo 
reached us the day our term opened. Since then, the number and 
character of my duties in launching our craft for another term 
have crowded me half way to insanity. But to-day we are under 
sail, and all posts are manned or womaned. . . . 

I should have written you on some points; but Mrs. Mann 
has said them better than I could. Ponder them, — for Antioeh's 
sake, for humanity's sake, for God's sake, ponder them. The 
bird's wing was not made for the air, nor our eye for the light, any 
more than you for Antioch College. Why will you keep things 
apart that were made for each other ? 

If I could feel that you would be ray successor here, I should be 
ready at any time to say with old Simeon, " Now, Lord, lettest 
thou thy servant depart in peace." 

May God bless and let me direct you ! Is that wicked ? 

As ever, yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Spkings, July 3, 1857. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — A new crisis has come to our affairs. 

First, however, let me say that we have had a glorious Com- 
mencement.* Governor Chase was here, and he says it surpassed 
any thing he ever saw in Ohio. Rev. Dr. Gannett was here from 
Boston ; and he says, that, in all the particulars that affect a moral 
and accountable being, they never have had any thing to compare 
with it at the East. 

... The Board has met, and elected a new Board. Antioch 
College has " failed." All its property is assigned for the payment 
of its debts. The whole scholarship system will be abolished. All 
the professors, including your humble servant, were decapitated by 

* The CommeQcement of the first class that was graduated from the college. 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 503 

the old Board. The new one, however, did replace the president's 
head before the flesh and nerves had become wholly cold and life- 
less; so that, with care, they may stick together once more. 

A new faculty is to be formed. Doherty and Allen are very 
sure not to be re-appointed ; and this will leave the cabinet a unit 
in sentiment and purpose. 

Always much, but now more than ever, must the Rev. Austin 
Craig come to the rescue. His services are indispensable, — first, 
as chaplain, to preach half the day on Sunday, having no connec- 
tion with the village but that of cordiality and reciprocity of good 
works ; and second, that of teaching, more or less as health may 
permit. 

Now, my dear friend, we have a chance for a college such as 
was never known before. In my " Baccalaureate," on Wednesday, 
I laid down the great doctrine, that the power of knowledge ought 
never to be added to the power of vice ; that, up to the time of en- 
tering a college-class, the most vicious and abandoned should be 
educated ; and the more so, the more so. But, after that, none but 
the virtuous, the earnest, those who give confident promise of 
righteousness or right-doing, should be invested with the preroga- 
tives and enchantments of knowledge. 

Now, my dear friend, I feel God-authorized to say you must 
come and work with us, and, when my mantle falls off", take it upon 
your shoulders. I see no alternative but this. Blooming Grrove, 
compared with this, is but the tiniest islet to the Western conti- 
nent. ... 

Yours in the Lord and Antioch, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Speings, June 7, 1857. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — The vision forever flits before my mind, 
that, if I am to be at Antioch College, you are to be here too. It 
cannot be selfishness. It is genuine heart-belief that nowhere else 
can you do so much good as here . . . Now be a good boy ! Don't 
be over-modest. Trust in God some, in Austin Craig also, and 
listen to this request, and make it prophecy now, and history here- 
after. Yours as ever, most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



504 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Antioch College, July 4, 1857. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — Althougli the ink is hai'dly dry on the 
last letter I wrote you, yet, having a chance to send by your friends, 
I improve it. 

I hardly know what I wrote you before ; yet I know I wrote what 
was nearest my heai-t, and therefore it must have been about your 
coming here. If you would do so, I know it would be the turning- 
point in the history of this institution. It will make a difference 
of many students ; and, what is better, it will make a difference in 
the moral and religious character of all. How gladly would I help 
you work here ! how rejoicingly I would leave you here when I am 
called away ! I know we have a chance for an institution here 
such as exists in no other part of the eai'th, — one founded on the 
love of truth and righteousness. We have the power of saying, 
and of maintaining the doctrine, equally new and great, that we 
will graduate none but true, exemplary youth; and this will push 
the world along half a century at one impulse. But, to all the 
good things I plan, you appear in the foreground of the pic- 
ture. . . . 

Pray let me hear from you soon. . . . These matters must be 

settled without delay. 

Yours as ever, and more so, 

HORACE MANN. 

It was the moral superiority of the college rather than 
a literary one to which Mr. Mann looked forward with so 
much hope and confidence. He felt, indeed, that where 
study was pursued conscientiously, and with higher mo- 
tives than the principle of emulation (which he consid- 
ered an unholy one), it would secure superiority there; 
but he had fed his imagination with the conception of a 
practical religious life to be inspired into or evolved out 
of the young, to which he thought the generous heart of 
youth would respond warmly, if it could be disconnected 
from a religionism whose features make the young turn 
away, — not because the natural heart is altogether evil, 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 505 

but because it is a narrow rather than a broad religious 
culture which is inculcated. His young friend whom he 
so long and earnestly importuned to come to his assist- 
ance was to him the type of what all the young might be ; 
and the fruits of his experiment during the last few 
years had satisfied him that his plans were not Utopian, 
as many of his friends wished to make him believe. He 
saw that the young could work together for their own 
and each other's improvement without the stimulus of 
rivalry or any base motive, but in true brotherly love. 

Mackinaw, Mich., Aug. 6, 1857. 

My dear Downer, — Here we all are in Mackinaw, and enjoy- 
ing ourselves too well not to tell you about it, and to wish you were 
with us. The climate, the air, &c., perform the promise made last 
year; and, as all the family are with me, I enjoy it vastly more 
than I did last year. I never breathed such air before ; and this 
must be some that was clear out of Eden, and did not get cursed. 
I sleep every night under sheet, blanket, and coverlet ; and no day 
is too warm for smart walking and vigorous bowling. The children 
are crazy with animal spirits, and eat in such a way as to demon- 
strate the epigastric paradox, that the quantity contained may be 
greater than the container. I verily believe, if you would spend 
one summer here, — say from about the middle of July to the mid- 
dle of September, — it would make your brain as good as Samuel 
Downer's brain ever was since it occupied its present cranium ; and 
that is saying a great deal. 

In the first place, you would analyze, and, morally speaking, 
pulverize and sift, the whole island in four days. 

In the second place, you could not get a mail but once a week. 
And, 

Thirdly, you would then have nothing to do but to use your 
senses on the beauties of water and sky, and see that you had daily 
food for two or three common rations. 

I am getting more weaned from Boston every day, and wish you 
did not love it so well. ... I shall want the dividends promptly ; 



506 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

for I am in very close quarters as to money. The breaking-up of 
the college as it did, without paying me a cent on about half a 
year's salary (besides the general indebtedness to me on the old 
score), has left me a sort of beggar. . . . 

I want a good long letter from you, — long enough to let me 
know all about your health, and how much you are released from 
the weight and care of business, and how deeply you are still in- 
volved in it ; because these things have the directest bearing upon 
your health. Tell me all the news. . . . 

Yours as ever, most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



The climate of Mackinaw proved to Mr. Mann's tempe- 
rament the most delicious one he ever enjoyed. With his 
family around him, including even a faithful, devoted, and 
well-trained cook ; with the beautiful lake at his feet, its 
plashing waters soothing his wearied nerves to sleep every 
night, the golden beach enlivened every morning by the 
tents of the Indians who came at daybreak from the op- 
posite shore with their fish and fruits ; with quiet boating 
with his children, long walks with them in the lovely 
woods, — he seemed almost to renew his youth. He knew 
terrific labors awaited him on his return ; but, for the first 
time in his life, he turned his thoughts away, and went to 
sleep on Mother Nature's bosom. He perhaps, of all per- 
sons on the island, was glad when the mail-boats did not 
arrive ; for they brought echoes of past and elements of 
future toil to him. He read aloud heart-inspiring books, 
— Whittier's poems, and other works which he had only 
known before by their titles ; and actually wrote a lecture 
he had in his head in verse. On one side of the island, a 
luxurious wood covers a declivity of one or two hundred 
feet. He found a steep path through this wood, across 
which ran a gigantic root, which he forthwith made his 
study. Thither he escaped every morning with his port- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 507 

folio and pencils, challenging his children to find him, 
which they did at last; but they were not often allowed to 
invade his quiet there. Their turn came later in the day. 
With nothing in view but the beautiful lake and sky, and 
the music of the pines and the birds in his ear, he actual- 
ly rested. A noble friend, Mr. Ward of Detroit, proposed 
to build a house upon the island, in which he invited him 
to spend all his summer vacations ; and he felt as if, with 
such repose as that would be, he might yet work many 
years : for temporary rest in which to recruit for more 
labor was all that ever dwelt in his imagination. 

On his return, he was required, as a condition of future 
existence to the college, to take the financial affairs into 
his own keeping. Every thing was to be organized anew, 
as it were. But there were some encouraging circum- 
stances in the prospect, that promised to lighten the 
burden, as his letters will show. 

Antioch College, July 18, 1857. 

My bear Mr. Craig, — Yours of the 11th instant has reached 
me to-day. The delay has given me restless sleep and horrid 
dreams ; but your letter promises a pleasant morning after a dreary 
night. 

First, I send you a catalogue : second, I am afraid you want 
more exactness of detail than it will be possible for me, in our 
present disorganized state, to give ; but I can make one assurance 
sure, — that we love you too well, and believe that the Lord has 
too much for you to do hereafter for Antioch College, to allow us 
to put your health in peril. 

I feel as though I could yet, iu desperate circumstances, perform 

a great amount of labor, and so does E, ; and what you can't 

do, i hope we can. What is wanted is, that you, temporarily, should 
fill Mr. 's place. The college and school are so utterly dis- 
satisfied with him, that it is said the whole of our to be seniors 
would leave if he is retained, and at least half of all the other college- 
classes. The case, therefore, is desperate. 



508 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

. . . Six thousand dollars are to be raised by subscription, which, 

with the expected income from tuition and rooms, is thought to be 

sufficient to pay the teachers at about the same rate as heretofore ; 

and I think you should be paid according to the proportion of your 

labors. But on this point, my dear friend, you must trust to the 

Lord a little, and, while you are reasonably careful about earthly 

treasure, lay up something in the upper treasury, whose officers 

never embezzle or defalcate. You will be worth ten thousand 

dollars to the moral interests of the college ; and all this will, I have 

no doubt, be transferred to your account in the book of life. As to 

the future, you know what I hope and intend for you. 

Yours as ever, 

HORACE MANN. 

Mr. Craig yielded to the demand made upon him at 
this time, and came to share the labors of the new col- 
lege, as it in effect was, though there was little outward 
change. The absence of two members of the faculty, who 
had made its meetings a scene of unhappy feeling so long, 
lightened the hearts of all the little cabinet : indeed, the 
members had refused to serve with one of the ejected 
parties any longer, since he had not only falsified the rec- 
ord of which he had unfortunately been made secretary, 
but had broken faith with them as a body repeatedly, and, 
regardless of their honor as a faculty, voted one way at 
their meetings, and reported his votes falsely outside, — 
secure in the knowledge that the rest would keep their 
word to let the final vote upon any subject stand as a 
unanimous one. Mr. Mann often said no words could 
describe the changed feeling with which he stood upon 
the platform of the chapel, and did not encounter that face 
in his audience. But he was not destined to enjoy that 
immunity long. Although rejected from the faculty with 
every token of moral disgrace, the obnoxious ex-member 
returned after two months' absence, obtruded himself into 
all the gatherings of the students in the chapel, and often 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 509 

in the recitation-rooms even of his own successor (al- 
though she was a lady, and a stranger to him) ; and, 
" squat like a toad," remained there through the greater 
part of the year, sowing dissension among students and 
villagers, interrupting the harmony that existed between 
the college and the village church, and at last, actually, 
by the most violent, dishonorable, and unscrupulous pro- 
ceedings, causing a schism in the latter, whose wounds 
were never again healed during Mr. Mann's life. At the 
end of the year, he published a slanderous and most false 
account of college and church affairs in a large octavo 
volume, which he spent a part of the next year in cir- 
culating, and in some cases peddling, through the 
" Christian " churches of the West. The effect of this 
was to alienate the interest of that denomination so far as 
to stop nearly all the supplies which earnest and self- 
sacrificing agents had been promised for the final redemp- 
tion of the institution ; the sale having been postponed 
for two years, in order to give time for its friends to rally. 
Mr. Mann and other members of the faculty decided, after 
a time, that it was best to answer this libellous production ; 
and each one wrote his own defence, and published them 
together in a small volume. It is doubtful if the reply 
ever reached a tithe of the persons upon whom the libel 
was assiduously forced ; and therefore the influence of 
the latter remains this day to prejudice many of the so- 
called " Christians " against the college, future as well 
as past. The expense as well as labor involved fell chiefly 
upon Mr. Mann. The labor was one of the drops too 
much that filled his last cup of life. 

Antioch Collegk, Yellow Spkings, Sept. 17, 1857. 
E. CoNANT, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — It is not a pleasant task to answer tlie letter 
which your grandson put into my hands yesterday. Nevertheless, 



510 LITE OF HOEACE MANN. 

I will do it frankly and directly, and, I trust, in a manner satisfac- 
toiy to you. 

The college was founded upon a rotten basis. By no possibility 
can a student be educated here for six dollars a year, or for six 
times that sum. It was intended to obtain four or five times as 
many scholarships as there would be scholars ; but that, though 
intended, was never effected. 

The consequence was, that the college has been running deeper 
and deeper into debt ever since it was opened. There was the most 
deplorable mismanagement in the building of it, as has since been 

ascertained, on the part of Mr. M , so that it ran in debt 

greatly; and, since it opened, those debts have been increasing. 
Eifort after effort has been made to pay off the debts ; but they 
have all failed. We have thought from time to time that they 
would succeed ; but we have been deplorably disappointed. At 
last it became apparent that the indebtedness of the college would 
not only require all the scholarship-fund for its payment, but would 
render every scholarship-holder liable for an additional amount 
beyond his scholarship, and equal to it ; that is, every owner of a 
scholarship would not only lose his scholarship, but be liable for 
a hundi-ed dollars besides. This, of course, would never do. The 
only alternative, therefore, was to transfer the college property for 
the payment of its debts, and begin anew on the basis of tuition. I 
say there was no alternative but this, or an entire breaking-up of 
the school, and an abandonment of the property to the creditors. 
The friends of the institution chose the former ; and, though a mis- 
fortune, it was the least of the misfortunes before them. This they 
have done. Members of the Board of Trustees and others have 
subscribed six thousand dollars to help carry on the school this year; 
and we hope to meet the residue of the expense from tuition-fees 
and other resources. I have made the above statement as that of 
the trustees ; in which, however, I fally concur. I have not yet 
stated, that, every year since I have been here, I have made more 
sacrifice for the college than the sum which you have paid. I am 
wilhng to make more if it can be saved for education, and a liberal, 
unsectarian Christianity. Are you not ready, my dear sir, to do 
the same ? What better use can we make of our means ? We now 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 511 

know the worst of it. This assignment cancels all the debts. Now 

we can start anew. Should a company be formed to buy in the 

college, and carry it on on the new basis (say to be owned in shares 

of five hundred dollars each) , would you not still, for so great an 

object, take one of the shares 1 The college has done immense good 

ah-eady. I trust the Lord has friends enough to sustain it for the 

still greater good it may do hereafter. 

Yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 



Mackinaw, Mich., Aug. 7, 1857. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — A steamboat which carries the mail lies 
at the wharf, but will start in a few minutes. I seize the moment 
to say that I have seen your letter to Mr. Fay. ... I look upon 
your assistance as almost, or rather I ought to say absolutely, 
essential to carry out the plans in regard to Antioch which have 
now been announced. After all that has been said and done, it 
will be an immense aifair to hold the college up to that standard of 
moral elevation which has now been officially promulgated. For 
that gi-and purpose, the highest and noblest practical enterprise 
which any man in the country can undertake, I know that you 
would be the best instrument the good God has yet made. Is it 
not an object in which all merely personal considerations should be 
merged ? You must break through all ordinary impediments, 
therefore, to meet this Grod-appointed exigency. . . . 

Farewell, and God bless you ! Remember you are Heaven and 
not committee appointed to such a work for education as was never 
undertaken before. 

HOE ACE MANN. 

AirriocH College, Sept. 17, 1857. 

My dear Mr. Craig, — I saved the college by going to Bloom- 
ing Grove, and securing your services in it ; but I came near losing 
myself. For thirty-six hours after I left you, I was more ill than 
I have been for years. I laid by at Dunkirk over Sunday ; and 
was just able to reach home, semi animus, on Monday. Well, I 



512 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

had this to console myself with, — if I got you, though I killed 
myself, I had made a great bargain. 

Our school opens grandly with about a hundred new students, 
and a better-looking class of students than we have ever had before. 
These students have all been brought here by our reputation : they 
have not come to save six dollars a year on a scholarship. They 
evidently come from the more intelligent class in the community, 
and thereby show where our strength is growing. I have great 
expectations from your connection with the college. I understand 
there is great jubilation among the students, — a double jubila- 
tion indeed, — one for those who are to come to help us, and one 
on account of those who are not. Your presence is looked for 
most anxiously. The contrast between you and your predecessor 
in this branch will be iimnense. . . . 

We are all well. I have had a dreadfully hard time since I 
returned. I want to tell you how the ungodly were caught in their 
own snare ; but this must be when you get here. Our anns are 
all open to receive you. . . . 

Your fiiend, HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, Oct. 16, 1857. 

My dear Downee, — ... We are going on grandly with the 
college. Notwithstanding the abolition of the scholarship system, 
which many thought would extinguish us, we have nearly three 
hundred students to-day, and more in the college-classes than ever 
before. There must be some reason that draws so many students 
here, notwithstanding the horrid pecuniary death we have been 
dying for four years, and notwithstanding every student who 
came was not without some reason to believe that the college would 
tumble down on his head. 

... I am living on short allowance ; have not had a cent from 
the eoUege for a year and a half; and it costs me about $2,000 a 
year to keep up my " public house." . . . 

Love from all to all, HORACE MANN. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 513 

Antioch College, Yellow Spkings, Oct. 23, 1857. 
Kev. Daniel Austin. 

My dear Sir, — I acknowledge with many thanks the receipt 
of yours of the 15th inst., enclosing a cheek for fifty dollars. It 
is most timely. I have been called upon to the full extent of my 
means ; and yet we have meritorious young people here whom it is 
a great delight to assist. Your gift will give many joyous hours. 

Our college has been revolutionized within the last three months. 
The scholarship system has been abolished, and a system of tuition 
substituted. The one was almost free : the other is somewhat 
expensive. Yet we have lost very few in point of numbers. That 
so many should resort here while there is a chance that the col- 
lege will tumble down over their heads ; that so many should 
become members of our college-classes while there is any chance 
that the institution will have no name or existence ten years 
hence, — proves, as it seems to me, the reputation we have acquired 
for scholarship and discipline. Indeed, I think it is now acknowl- 
edged on all hands that we have the best institution for learning 
and good morals this side the mountains. The bigots are say- 
ing all manner of evil things about us ; but we hope to survive 
their anathemas. 

Have you seen Dr. Gannett's article about us in the last number 

of the " Unitarian Quarterly Journal "? He came out here Saul : 

he went back Paul. . . . Yours most truly, 

H. MANN. 

Yellow Springs, Jan. 13, 1858. 
Rev. 0. J. Wait. 

My dear Sir. . . . With many thanks for your proposed atten- 
tions and civilities, permit me to say that all my feelings and habits 
would be far more gratified to be allowed, on my arrival at Cincin- 
nati, to go quietly to a hotel, than to be surrounded with all the 
pomp and circumstance belongmg to a king. I propose to stop at 
my usual place when in the city, — the Burnet House. There, 
when it is convenient, I shall be most happy to see you and your 
friends, and ray friends if I have any. . . . 

In the mean time, I remain very truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 
33 



514 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Feb. 27, 1858. 

My dear Mr. May, — I was many times glad to hear that you 
had so far recovered your health as to return to your home and 
your duties again. Has that terrible fellow they call Old Age 
got held of you yet ? Occasionally I think I hear the sound of his 
footsteps. I dread him greatly ; not so much, however, for what 
he does, as for what he will prevent me from doing. Thei'e are a 
few causes — such as universal peace and universal freedom, and 
education, the parent of them all — in which I have become intensely 
interested, and want to fight in their ranks at least a hundred years 
before being summoned away. I fear the chances are against me. 

Dui'ing the ensuing fortnight's vacation, I propose to recreate 
myself on a lecturing tour this side and the other side of the Missis- 
sippi. 

Internally our establishment goes on beautifully; but abroad 
the trump of doom is sounding in our ears. Some of our Eastern 
friends are anxious for us ; but it is impossible for them to compre- 
hend the significance of such an institution here : and so a great 
calamity may come upon the world, which the possession of one 
idea would have averted. This Great West has been conquered, 
religiously speaking, from Black Hawk to John Calvin. So far as 
the religious dogmas are concerned, I would rather it would be 
Black Hawk's again. The people of the West are open, receptive, 
mouldable. The ministers have a cast-iron epidermis, — so opaque 
and impervious, that no sunlight can get into them ; so absorbent, 
that none is reflected from them, or all that strikes upon them is 
swallowed up and lost. The stronger minds, which break away 
from Orthodoxy as the common rule, find no stopping-place this 
side of general scepticism. In this great State of Ohio, with nearly 
three millions of people, there are but three Unitarian societies ; 
and these are small. All the colleges of a first-class character have 
a strong infusion of Calvinism mingled with their daily food. 

Although our first commencement was held last year, we grad- 
uated more than the average of the first eleven colleges in Ohio ; 
and our numbers exceed those of any other, with the exception of 
Oberlin, and we have a far larger number than that had at our age. 
!More than a thousand students, either from the collegiate or the pre- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN, 515 

paratory department, have left us ; and among them all, scarcely one 
who had been with us long enough to imbibe the spirit of the place 
has left us a dogmatizer or a bigot. Many have left for the minis- 
try ; but it is the ministry of truth, and not of a sect. There is a 
strong but a sober spirit of attention to religious interests among 
our students. Their moral character and conduct correspond. 

On the east side of our grounds, and immediately adjoining them, 
is a farm of four hundred acres, with garden, vineyard, and orchard 
of twenty or thirty in addition. On the north-west, Judge Mills 
has a large flower and fruit garden.* On the south-west, a 
hundred and fifty rods from our doors, a Frenchman raises choice 
jfruits for the market. Not one of these for two years has lost an 
apple or peach or grape. . . . Our dormitory, nearly filled mth 
male students, has no tutor or proctor or overseer. In study-hours, 
it is as quiet as your house. We have no rowdyism, no drinking 
of intoxicating liquors, no gambling or card-playing ; and we have 
nearly succeeded, notwithstanding the inveteracy of these habits 
at the West, in exorcising profanity and tobacco. 

You know my views of emulation. It may make bright scholars ; 
but it makes rascally politicians and knavish merchants. 

All of our faculty now, except myself, are young (and I feel so) , 
and are well qualified for their places, and filled with a generous 
enthu^siasm. Five of them are members of the Chiistian Church, 
two of the Unitarian Church. Two of our professors are ladies. 
Audi alteram, 'partem. 

The whole college property is advertised to be sold at auction on 
the second day of June next ! The Presbyterians have been contem- 
plating the erection of a college for some years, and have collected 
funds for the purpose. A year ago, they located one at West 
Liberty, about forty miles north from here. Hearing of our disasters, 
they suspended all preparations for building ; and, this present 
week, a body of them, or committee rather, made us a visit of ex- 
amination. It is said all around that they will give sixty thousand 
dollars for this, — some say eighty thousand. No doubt they would 
be willing to give a few thousands extra for the sake of the omen. 

* The students had at all times the privilege of crossing his domains in 
every direction. 



516 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

What a chance for any one who stands at the door of wealth to 
say, " Open sesame!" Would not the very gates of heaven 
stand wider forever afterwards? Let this chance pass by, when 
will such an institution, in such a working condition, re-appear? 
You may have the brick and the mortar ; but 

" Where is the Promethean fire that will that light relume ? " 

Excuse this long outpouring. My heart is fiiU of the subject, — 
not at all, be assured, for any selfish reason ; for I have not re- 
ceived money enough from the institution, since I came here, to pay 
my family expenses : but that " man cannot live by bread alone " 
is as tnie of your old and dearly loving friend, Horace Mann, as of 
anybody else. 

Mr. Mann now threw himself into the final effort to save 
the institution to liberal education, secular and religious, 
with a zeal and intensity that alarmed those who watched 
over him, whose eyes were not holden by their own selfish 
aims. He was involved in a perfect network of the lat- 
ter. Men who had pretended enthusiasm for him and 
for learning at first, fell away and became hostile when 
the failing fortunes of the college disappointed their desire 
to coin gold out of their unsold lands. They cared not who 
occupied the ground if these could be sold. Many dishon- 
est men took refuge in the excuse that they were involved 
in college debts. Some men pretended to be in his confi- 
dence who were not so, and used his good name to cover 
up their evil deeds. Mutual animosities between parties 
connected with the college prejudiced the minds of those 
who looked on from without, and could not understand 
the complications thus entailed upon its interests. There 
seemed to be but one possible way in which to extricate 
it even from outward difficulties : this was for its friends 
to purchase it outright, and set it upon an independent 
basis, freed from all previous entanglements. A few 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 517 

more letters describing the labors of a few more months 
will bring the sad narrative to a close. 

Yellow Springs, March 3, 1858. 

My deab Mr. Craig, — You have not yet been gone two days, 
and we are all homesick for you already. My ears tingle to know 
what you are saying and doing at Stafford to-day. 

. . . Doubtless it will be given you in that selfsame hour what 
you shall say : but, among the things which you do say, I trust 
you will not omit to dwell with earnest, apostolic unction upon the 
character of our students ; their freedom from almost all the vices 
and evil habits which are commonplace in other colleges ; the secu- 
rity of gardens and orchards and vineyards wholly from any dep- 
redations of theirs ; on the fact that both the men and women of 
the village have been watching the past season for offenders 
against the temperance laws, yet never has suspicion rested on 
one of our students of having so much as visited a drinking-saloon 
or other similar resort ; the feeling with which the young men 
are regarded by the ladies of the place ; the high, elevated, and 
often religious tone of their exercises, whether for exhibition or 
class compositions ; and what I think will strike your audience 
very forcibly, — the fact that, among all who have gone out from here 

from all the classes, J J is the only bigot I know of* 

They go out, generally, deeply impressed with the importance of 
religious truth, but inquirers, not dogmatizers. 

And now, my dear, very dear friend, may peace and blessing at- 
tend you all the days of your life ! 

I know Mrs. Mann would send indefinite quantities of love if 

she were here, and so would the childers. 

Ever and truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Yellow Springs, May 18, 1858. 
My dear Mr. Combe, — I received your letter of March 18 
about a week ago ; and it would have given me unmingled satisfac- 

* The man here alluded to entered with hostile feelings and bigoted views 
deeply rooted. 



518 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

tion but for an expression at the close. In this you intimate that 
we have become forgetful or unmindful of you, and say you are 
unconscious of haviag done any thing to forfeit our esteem. My 
dear friend, I am exceedingly sorry that any such suspicion or 
suggestion should ever have come consciously into your mind. I 
assui-e you it represents no truth. My consciousness affirms this. 
There is no man of whom I think so often ; there is no man of 
whom I write so often ; there is no man who has done me so much 
good as you have. I see many of the most valuable truths as I 
never should have seen them but for you, and all truths better than 
I should otherwise have done. K I could do it, I would make a 
pilgrimage to see you ; and, if you would come to America, I would 
take care of you till one or the other of us should die. You must 
find, and I can give, other and unanswerable reasons why I do not 
write to you so often as I would. The administration of the col- 
lege is very engrossing. I teach political economy, intellectual 
philosophy, moral philosophy, and natural theology, one class all 
the year, and, one-third of the year, two classes. I take the whole 
charge of the Sunday school, which almost all our mature scholars 
attend voluntarily ; and, with their eager and inquisitive minds, they 
demand substance, and will not be satisfied with form. The entire dis- 
ciphne of the institution devolves upon me. With such of our young 
people as need the curbing of the propensities, and to have their 
energies withdrawn from their present channels and directed into 
new ones, I spend a great deal of time privately. I cannot get at 
the heart iu social addresses as I can in private appeals. When I 
have an interview with a reckless or perverse student, and pass 
into his consciousness, and try to make him see mine, I always shed 
tears ; I cannot help it : and there is a force in honest tears not to 
be found in logic. This labor is diminishing as the spirit of the 
school, its animus, improves. And we really have the most orderly, 
sober, diligent, and exemplary institution in the country. We 
passed through the last term, and are more than half through the 
present ; and I have not had occasion to make a single entry of any 
misdemeanor in our record-book, — not a case for any serious disci- 
pline. 

There is no rowdyism in the village, no nocturnal rambles mak- 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN, 519 

ing night hideous. All is quiet, peaceful ; and the women of the 
village feel the presence of our students, when met in the streets in 
the evening, to be a protection rather than an exposure. It is now 
almost five years since I came here, and as yet I have had no 
"practical joke" or "college prank," as they are called, played 
upon me, — not in a single instance. Think you it has not required 
some labor to superinduce this state of things on the free and easy 
manners of the West ? 

We are in the midst of a great community, ferociously Orthodox. 
In this great State of Ohio, already having a population of more 
than two millions and a half, there are but four Unitarian churches. 
Calvinism has terrible sway, and its whole artillery is levied 
against us. We take it broadsides, and work on. If we can go 
on, we will make a breach in the Chinese Wall, and let in the light. 

But here the question arises, Can we go on ? Our institution 

was begun when money was superabundant, when everybody felt 

rich and generous. The time for opening was proclaimed a year 

in advance. Then came disaster. All materials, labor, stock, 

rose from thirty-thi-ee to fifty per cent. Interest became exorbitant. 

The accounts were not well kept ; and when I came, though it 

was not known to me for more than a year afterwards, the college 

was bankrupt, and has been bankrupt ever since. From time to 

time, new plans have been devised for raising money : they have 

failed. And now, unless help comes from some quarter, we shall 

disband, and leave the old schools and the old theology to take our 

place on the first of July next. Oh, if we had a tithe of the 

wealth that the world is squandering every day, what unspeakable 

good we could do with it ! I know, if you could find and send us 

$100,000, it would be the happiest act in your long and useful 

life. 

My dear Mr. and Mrs. Combe, good-by ! 

HORACE MANN. 

It was not long after this letter was written that the 
intelligence of Mr. Combe's death came. Mr. Mann was 
hardly prepared for it even by Mr. Combe's own anticipa- 
tion. The greatest consolation for the loss was in the 



520 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

feeling of joyful sympathy with that great consciousness 
which he had the happiness of believing would open his 
vision in another sphere of progress in a way which he did 
not himself anticipate. All Mr. Combe's imagination had 
been able to compass was the future progress of the human 
race on earth ; and glorious and inspiring that imagination 
was, for glorious and inspiring was his conception of its 
capacities for earthly improvement. Mr. Mann enjoyed 
both. He, too, believed its destiny in tins world was scarce- 
ly yet comprehended by the loftiest earthly conceptions ; 
but he looked upon this world in its best estate as but a 
school for the cultivation of faculties wliich were to ripen 
in nearer consciousness of God, in spheres where fuller 
conceptions of his omnipotence would be vouchsafed to 
the sovil that had been faithful to its earthly trust, and 
where the search into causes would be forever prosecuted 
without the drawbacks imposed by the earthly body. 

Yellow Springs, Ohio, July 3, 1858. 

D. Cromyer, Esq. — ... I often tell our young people, that, if 
they can be equipped for the business of life at thirty, they have 
done well. Let two young people enter upon the active stage of 
life, one at twenty years of age and the other at thirty, in every 
other respect alike, save that the latter has spent his ten years in 
preparation, and, at the age of forty-five, the latter will be ahead of 
the former in wealth, position, character, and all the means of hap- 
piness. 

I hate debt as badly as Dr. Franklin did ; and yet there are two 
things for which I would not hesitate a moment to incur it, — to 
save my life and to get an education, and for the latter as soon as 
the former. 

A year after graduating is worth two years before. It is there- 
fore a saving of fifty per cent of life. Is not this a good as well as 
an honest speculation ? This favors borrowing. 

But school-keeping and manual labor offer themselves as means 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 521 

of support. Many of the young men in our college support them- 
selves wholly or partially in one of these ways. The most menial 
services about our buildings are performed by our students ; and 
they are not respected less, but more, on this account.* 

There is a great demand also in this vicinity for well-qualified 
teachers. After all, I should be governed more by the spirit of the 
young man you refer to than by his external circumstances all put 
together. Has he an irrepressible desire for knowledge, and for 
the uses of knowledge in benefitino; his fellow-men? Is he 
prompted by a selfish and ignoble, or by a generous and lofty 
ambition ? Does he think of the world which he can benefit by his 
own attainments and talents? or does he desire attainments and 
talents that he may make the world, thi'ough their influence, benefit 
him ? . . . 

These, and such things as these, are the data I should ask for, — 

the premises on which I should form my conclusions, far more than 

on circumstances of age or poverty. 

Yours very truly, 

H. M. 

Yellow Springs, July 10, 1858. 

My dear Downee, — I suppose you will call me a fool ; but we 
shall see better how that is when we get to the " new Jerusalem." 

It was absolutely necessary to raise about twenty-one thousand 
dollars here by subscription, or else the college was remedilessly 
lost. We got all its friends to be present at commencement whom 
we could prevail upon to come, hoping to make a strong rally. But 
those who were most bound to step into the breach shrunk and 
skulked, and would do nothing. The thing looked utterly irretriev- 
able. I then did what I suppose you will blame me for : but it 
really was a question, whether this one liberal institution in the 

* In more than one instance, when talented and estimable young men feared 
not to be able to remain in the institution as long as they wished, from being 
unable to command the employment that would give them the means, purses were 
secretly made up by other pupils better off in this respect, and put into the presi- 
dent's hands for their relief; while the object of it was spared the pain of a depend- 
ent feeling by not knowing the individuals. In some instances, the stimulus of this 
testimony to their worth was very ennobling as well as animating to the subjects 
of it. — Ed. 



522 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

midst of a world of intolerance ; whether this one institution, open 
for the equal education of woman ; whether this one institution, 
where alone the doctrine is promulgated and sustained in practice, 
that no immoral young man shall add the attractions of learning to 
the seductions of profligacy, — it was, I say, a question, whether this 
institution should be sacrificed, or whether I should be. I chose 
the latter ; in consequence of which it is necessary for me to raise 
four thousand dollars by the first of August next. I hope I can 
make some turn out here for the whole, or at least for a part of it. 
My security here will avail if I can find the money ; but, if I can- 
not, then I shaU have to put my property at the East into the market 
or under the hammer. . . . Out of some of these resources I must 
raise the money there, if I cannot here. I shall know in a few days 
just how much I must have ; and then I want to rely upon you to 
raise it out of some of my means at any sacrifice.* 

We have passed and are passing through hard times ; but, the 
Lord willing, I think we will make something out of our opportuni- 
ties yet. I shall be detained here all summer, looking after college 
afiaii's. I am worked down, but am otherwise very well, and hope 
to fight the Devil for some years yet. With love from all to all, I 

remain, as ever. 

Yours most truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

P. S. — Oh, if some of those old fellows, who are rich to the 
peril of then souls, only knew what was good for them ! 

The subject of the peculiar discipline of the college has 
often been adverted to in these pages ; but the opportunity 
to speak of Mr. Mann's efforts to bring the youngest class 
of boys in the preparatory school to a sense of their duties 
toward each other and to themselves should not be lost. 
Several very bad children had been sent to his care by 
parents who had found themselves baffled by their per- 
versity; and one or two of them had introduced specifical- 
ly, and enforced with much plausibility in the opinion of 

* Mr. Mann concluded to subscribe five thousand dollars. Mr. Downer had lost 
hope about the success of the institution. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 523 

some of their companions, ideas of rebellion against 
parents and the constituted authorities, secret associations, 
signals for gathering together, places of meeting, &c. 
Mr. Mann's suspicions became strongly excited. He lost 
no time in investigating the matter. He knew the 
influence for evil that one or two talented and unscrupu- 
lous boys could exercise, and thought heroic measures 
were called for. He invited the boys to his room in the 
college, and also the parents of those who lived in the 
town, the professors, and the teachers of the preparatory 
school. Quite a large party assembled ; and Mr. Mann 
thoroughly explained his views of the relations the pupils 
of a school should hold to each other and to their teachers. 
He found it far easier to make an impression upon the 
boys than he had formerly been able to do upon the young 
men of the older classes, the better portion of whom had 
finally coincided with and acted upon his views ; for 
the boys had not become so possessed with the current 
notion, that it is honorable, under all circumstances, to 
stand up for one's companions, right or wrong. He asked 
them if they should not think it their duty to tell their 
parents if their brothers were indulging in any wrong- 
doing which was injurious to themselves or others, when 
they knew that they could be kept from evil by timely 
warning. Loving childhood answered, " Yes." Could 
they not look upon their teachers as if they were parents, 
and upon all their companions as brothers ? He told them 
he took the place of a parent when he undertook the care of 
a boy whose parents were absent ; and did not their position 
as companions impose a kindred duty upon them ? Would 
it be true friendship to let one of their number perish, 
when he might be saved by the influence of those in whose 
care he was placed? and was he not in their care as well 
as in his ? and, if they could not persuade him to desist 



524 LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN. 

from wrong-doing, would it not be right to come to him, 
or to some other teacher who might persuade him ? Before 
he demanded a response, he made it perfectly clear to 
them that he did not approve of tale-bearers ; that it was 
only in the spirit of love that he wished them ever to 
speak to him of the faults of another ; that, if they did it, 
they must not do it secretly, but openly, towards the faulty 
companion, who would then know that it was done out of 
good-will, and not out of ill-will, — out of true friendship, 
and not out of enmity. He also enforced the duty of 
answering inquiries truthfully when he or the other 
teachers felt it to be their duty to investigate cases of 
wrong-doing; showing them that scholars were bound by 
responsibilities toward their teachers as truly as teachers 
were so bound to their scholars, on the ground that all 
men are bound to help others to do right when they can, 
and especially when thrown together for purposes of edu- 
cation. If they did not feel willing, or were not strong 
enough in moral courage, to come unbidden for advice 
in such cases, they could surely see the obligation to tell 
the truth when asked. So strongly, so movingly, in behalf 
of the erring and the weak, did he enunciate to them the 
Christian duty, of saving souls, that every breath was 
hushed, and many a lip quivered. 

He then proposed to take a vote. Many hands went 
up, but not all. For the moment, at least, the appeal was 
almost irresistible. 

He told them he understood the doubt. Some good 
boys whom he saw there doubted. He did not condemn 
them. He knew it might seem ungenerous at the first 
thought ; but he had little doubt they would all say they 
were willing to be told of. He would take a vote upon 
that. 

Every hand went up but those of the three bad boys, 
whom he well knew. 



LIFE OP HOEACB MANN. 525 

After a repetition of some of his former arguments, he 
proposed a vote upon the previous question again. Every 
hand went up but one besides the three delinquents'. He 
invited this one to come and talk with him again privately ; 
telling him he knew him to be a good boy, and he thought 
he could convince him. 

He then addressed the culprits ; told them he knew them, 
knew their habits, knew the evil influences they had tried 
to exert, which he analyzed and scathed as demoralizing 
to character, and then forbade them to have any thing to 
do with the boys who wished to do their duty ; forbade 
them to go to their rooms, or to play with them at recrea- 
tion-hours, but designated them as " rotten sheep," who 
must not be allowed to infect the flock. They were only 
fit for the society of each other. 

The faults of these boys had been gross indecency and 
profanity ; falsehood ; combinations against college-rules ; 
secret societies for rebellious purposes, sustained by 
pledges, and penalties for their violation ; the introduction 
of bad books, and even intemperance, young as they were. 

Old and young went home with the feeling that a new 
view of duty had been taken ; for it had been long since 
the public opinion of the college in regard to this matter 
had been established among older classes, and there had 
been no occasion for a re-enunciation of the principle, 
except in some individual cases. 

The immediate effect was the breaking-up of all combi- 
nations ; and the parents who resided in the village kept 
their children more at home in recreation-hours, not 
allowing them to mix so freely with the strangers. Re- 
newed vigilance was exercised in regard to the regulations 
about study-hours, at which times no students were al- 
lowed, except by special permission, to go into each other's 
rooms. The " rotten sheep" kept out of everybody's way 



526 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

for a time, and were soon withdrawn from the college by 
their friends. 

One cause of peculiar annoyance to Mr. Mann may 
easily be understood to have flowed out of the peculiar 
nature of the college, which was more libi&ral in its views 
of female education, even, than others of the same kind. 

A class of women was attracted to the institution who 
would fain have set at nought all regulations conducive 
to propriety of deportment as conceived by Mr. Mann. 
They were not vicious, but wanting in what he consid- 
ered womanliness, so far as to think, for instance, that, if a 
young man could be allowed to walk down into the village 
alone to do a little necessary shopping in the evening, a 
young woman might do the same, although the village 
shops were filled with idle and rude men and boys at that 
time, and with many who would have been glad to fix a 
stigma upon a liberal institution ; or that the young ladies 
might be allowed to exercise on the gymnastic apparatus 
that stood near the gentlemen's hall. One of these young 
women tried the experiment of taking her books to a gen- 
tleman's apartment one evening " to study with him," by 
which she nearly lost her chance of further residence on 
the premises ; but she was saved by Mr, Mann's conviction 
that it was in support of a theory rather than with any 
evil intent. In that case, the other party or parties (for 
there were two), were gentlemen not only in name, but 
in reality : they understood the young lady's fanaticism, 
but were candid enough to express their dissent from her 
views in a friendly spirit, and prevent the recurrence of 
the act. 

Mr. Mann made the way of such transgressors hard, 
and was always glad when they turned their backs upon 
the college with disgust, as was sometimes the case. 
Outside, " women' s-rights " women of an ultra stamp 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 527 

increased the difficulties for him by comiug upon the 
premises, and promulgating their heresies against good 
manners. 

On one occasion, when the faculty had decided that it 
was best that the young ladies and gentlemen of the lite- 
rary societies should no longer hold their ordinary meet- 
ings together, but should meet separately, except on their 
public days, some women of this class felt that their rights 
were denied them, — "rights" being sometimes interpret- 
ed to mean, just what I choose to do. To avenge their 
wrongs, they induced the whole society to appear dressed 
in deep mourning on a very public occasion, when their 
united literary societies were addressed by a stranger. 
The faculty took no notice of it except by a good-natured 
smile, thinking the most salutary punishment would be 
to leave them to the public ridicule, without giving them 
the solace of being martyrs. The most prominent 
offender soon concluded to leave an institution where 
she was subject to such oppression. 

As an attempt has been made to give a true history of 
Antioch College, it is fitting to give what few exceptions 
occurred to mar the beauty of its ordinary good behavior. 
It is remarkable how few of these there were. The only 
one that gave Mr. Mann any real and permanent pain 
took place towards the close of his administration of it. 
On the day of commencement in 1858, a very impertinent 
and even scurrilous paper was scattered broadcast in 
every one's path. It lampooned some of the faculty, 
though not Mr. Mann himself. It had been instigated 
and carried through by a young man who had been under 
severe censure; and a few others, who had also offended 
and been reprimanded, aided him. After much falsifica- 
tion, in the vain hope of defending or screening them- 
selves, they were expelled. They refused to leave the 



528 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

hall. After being several times told to go, the super- 
intendent, then a very worthy man, proceeded to remove 
their furniture. Mr. Maun happened to be in the college 
premises, and heard there were threats of violence toward 
this official. He and another member of the faculty 
walked over into the gentlemen's hall, and stood quietly by 
while the furniture was carried out. In the evening, at 
the close of a lecture, Mr. Mann was publicly arrested in 
his chapel by order of those young men, and held to bail 
for violating the rights of domicile ! He succeeded in 
putting off the trial for a few weeks, thinking it best to 
make it an occasion for establishing the principle, that the 
faculty of a college had a right to enforce the by-law, that 
no persons not connected with the college should remain 
on the premises, or, in other words, should have the control 
of the college-buildings. The Hon. Thomas Corwin was 
retained for counsel, and did the work ably and wittily. 
But the circumstance was a very painful one to Mr. Mann, 
especially as it occurred at the same period as the libellous 
attack of the discomfited ex-professor. Undoubtedly, the 
disrespectful and impertinent act was aided and abetted 
— it certainly was sympathized with — by the aggrieved 
literary ladies and their champions. At such times all 
malecontents take courage, and strengthen each other. 
Mr. Mann could no longer say that there were none of 
these in his little kingdom; and this grieved his fatherly 
heart. 

Yellow Springs, Aug. 18, 1858. 
E. CoNANT, Esq. 

My dear Sir, — I acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 
15th inst., enclosing a bank draft for one hundred dollars on be- 
half of all those connected with the administration of the college. I 
assure you, it will be gratefully received. 

You speak of a draft for two hundred and fifty dollars, sent to 
me (as you say) about two years ago. That was not sent to me ; 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 529 

but I find it entered on the college-books on the 8th of September, 
1856. 

In aU institutions like oui's, there must be two departments, — 
the educational and the financial. In ours, the educational has pros- 
pered beyond any thing that I have ever known or heard of. The 
financial has been as disastrous as it could be. I have had as 
much heretofore as I could possibly do in attending to the educa- 
tional : I have now taken hold of the other. If its aflkirs are not 
gi-eatly improved, and that, too, without much delay, I shall leave 
both. 

The college was bankrupt on the day it opened, — miserably 
bankrupt : but its moneyed accounts had been kept in such a man- 
ner, that the fact of its utter bankruptcy was not then known, and 
could not be to any but its agent ; and, if he knew it, he kept it to 
himself. 

The scholarship system as here undertaken was a ruinous and 
suicidal system. It undertook to give a college education perpet- 
ually, without interruption, for six dollars a year ! The children 
learning A B C in this town have paid that sum 'per quarter since I 
have been here. 

The only scholarship system that possibly can be successful 
would be one where the capital or price of the scholarship is five or 
sis hundred dollars, or where the scholarships are so numerous 
that not more than one of them in four or five is represented by 
students at the same time. Then the ones unused would help to 
support the ones used. 

Now, the college being bankrupt, secretly so, when it was 
opened, and the scholarships being too few in number to bear one- 
half its expenses, the trustees administered it for four years, hoping 
that donations, &c., would rescue it, but running in debt all the 
time. At last, all plans for its rehef having failed, and the public 
having lost all confidence in its pecuniary management, so that all 
donations ceased, there seemed to be no alternative but to assign 
the property for the payment of its debts. 

This, of course, was a failure. It was just like the failure of 
any railroad or bank or manufacturing company. The stock- 
holders lost their shares : that was the whole of it. But you know 

34 



530 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

that honest creditors must have their pay, though stockholders 
do lose all their stock. This is all that has been done. I, being 
one of the creditors, am a great loser by the failure. While it has 
cost me every cent of my salary to live here in the expensive 
though economical way in which I live, yet I have received but 
about half of that salary. Must I refund what I have received, that 
stockholders may get back what they have paid on their scholarship- 
notes ? Will other bond-fide creditors do this ? It is a bad spec- 
ulation, as everybody knows ; but, in such a ease, must the honest 
creditors of a company lose, or the shareholders in the company ? 
If the company had been successful, it would have been their 
gain. If unsuccessful, must it not be their loss ? That there Ijias 
been bad management, there is no doubt ; but the radical defect was 
the viciousness of the plan of scholarships, and the irresponsibility 
of the men or man originally employed to carry on the work. 

But, my dear sir, we have hopes of a change. A company is 
now being formed, consisting of the friends of the college, and the 
" Christian " * friends of those under whose auspices it was erected, 
to purchase it, and put it upon a new financial basis. The shares 
will be five hundred dollars each. Such is the plan. We should 
be very glad if you would become the proprietor of a share. The 
new company will have no legal connection with the old. They 
expect to pay for the property as much as anybody will pay. They 
expect to administer it under the same moral and religious auspices. 
They mean to take- precautions that it shall be better managed in 
its pecuniary affairs than the old one has been. A gift of five hun- 
dred dollars will entitle you and your successor indefinitely to take 
part in its management. 

Excuse this long letter. I feel an interest that you should see 
these pecuniary relations as they really are, and have no unkind 
feelings towards those who do not deserve them, 
I am, dear sir, yours very truly, 

HORACE MANN. 

The following letters to the Rev. 0. J. Wait, a clergy- 
man of the " Christian denomination," so called, are in 

* This term is here used denominationally. 



LIFE OP HOEACB MANN. 531 

reply to one from that gentleman informing Mr. Mann 
that the time had come when the support of Antioch 
College by that denomination depended upon his personal 
views upon the subject of religious conversion and regen- 
eration. He therefore begged him to make a statement 
of those views, to be presented at a " Christian" conven- 
tion soon to be assembled. It may well be asked, How 
could Mr. Mann retain any further connection with so 
bigoted and inquisitorial a people ? The answer is. That 
he considered himself placed there to repel precisely such 
assaults upon freedom of thought. He knew, that, if he 
left the place, it would fall into the hands of those who 
had no conception of what unsectarian education meant ; 
and he was too deeply interested in its furtherance to give 
it up lightly. He had had abundant proof that the young 
people who were enjoying the advantages his persistent 
stay afforded them appreciated them, and would make 
noble use of them. He well knew, too, that no pains had 
been spared by malignant enemies to throw this firebrand 
in his path. It is heart-sickening to read the evidence of 
this in the voluminous correspondence of college-agents, 
friends, enemies, and victims ; but it is the history of 
bigotry the world over. 

Mr. Mann was one of those men, who, like the Chris- 
tianized Brahmin, Rammohun Roy, believed in Christian- 
ity on other grounds than through the miracles recorded 
of it. Rammohun Roy translated only the precepts of 
Jesus for the conversion of his countrymen : for, as he 
said, the Christian miracles did not compare in marvel- 
lousness with those recorded of Pagan deities ; and the 
Godhead of three persons in one, preached by the Chris- 
tian missionaries, was, in principle, the same with the 
thirty thousand in one of the Indian religion. He wished 
his students to look at the precepts of him who first pro- 



532 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

mulgated the Fatherhood of God as the principle of ethics ; 
for it was this truth which he believed distinguished 
Christianity from all other systems, — a truth conveyed in 
no form of metaphysical abstraction, but in the winged 
words of an unspoiled human being, whose first recorded 
utterance is, " Wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father's business ? " 

Mr. Mann labored ever to make this thought the inspi- 
ration of all who came under his religious instruction ; 
for to act upon it he felt sure would criticise in the legiti- 
mate manner all the creeds among which they were edu- 
cated, and preclude narrowness of mind, and bigotry of 
feeling, while it would engage all the energies of the 
heart and imagination. For what is " the Father's busi- 
ness " ? The universe answers with all the sciences, 
and history witli all the arts, rising through the mechani- 
cal and sesthetic and social to the art of arts, which has 
for its end the salvation of man, not only as an individ- 
ual, but as nations and as a race. With such an ideal 
as this as manifest destiny, he knew that the interest of 
every sect would fade into nonentity. 

Religion in its widest and most all-embracing sense was 
the native atmosphere of Mr. Mann's soul. Sometimes he 
had worshipped darkly, and then the universe was clouded. 
It often takes the whole of life to solve the problem of 
why we suffer. Gradually, as it solves itself to an eye open 
to the subject, the desire becomes more and more intense 
to help others in their analysis. " Why I suffer " at last 
grows clearer ; and those minds that reach the solution 
gain the peace that it brings : but most souls only ap- 
proach this, so easily is the vision dimmed and the mind 
swayed by the circumstances immediately surrounding 
■us. The " mists of the affections," though they may be 
compared to the beneficent dews that sustain the other- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 533 

wise parched and withered earth, often make all things 
loom to the intellectaal sight ; and we must wait till they 
are dispelled by the sun of truth before we can reason 
clearly. Gradually man learns to wait for this illuminat- 
ing process, distrusting his own heart meanwhile. The 
universe became all alight to Mr. Mann at last. There 
remained no dark, inexplicable evils. His subtle causal- 
ity penetrated one after another, and a flame of enthusi- 
asm was kindled within him to point out the light ; and 
the might of self-sacrifice which is born out of love carried 
him through labors that would otherwise have been in- 
tolerable. 

Yellow Springs, Sept. 22, 1858. 
Rev. 0. J. Wait. 

My dear Sib, — Though I owe you many apologies for so late 
a reply, yet I am rich in all the best materials for an apology. 

For the last fortnight, my engagements have not left me an hour 
of leisure. The commencement of a term is always a very busy 
time with me ; but this year, owing to the changes which have been 
made, and to the fact that we have an entering-class larger than 
ever before, I have had more than enough to fill hands and head. 

First, I thank you for the kind and friendly spuit in which your 
letter appears to have been written. 

Your first two questions are substantially this : whether there has 
been any opposition, open or secret, direct or indirect, on the part 
of myself, or to my knowledge on the part of any member of the 
faculty, against Rev. Mr. Doherty or Prof. Allen, on account of 
their supposed religious views; and whether they have not, for 
some such reason, been left out of the present faculty. 

I answer this inquiry in every form in which it can be put, in 
whole or in part, generically and specifically, with the most decided 
negative. I deny the imputation for myself, and, so far as I have 
ever known, for every other member of the faculty ; and, if I knew 
of any other more positive or comprehensive way of denying it, I 
would use that way. There are many here who would not regret 
to be constrained to give the true reasons why those professors left. 



534 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

Your next question relates to Prof. H and his leave of 

absence. 

To this I answer, That though I advised Prof. H to go 

abroad, and study for the duties of his chair, yet that I did it with 
none but the most friendly feelings and motives ; and that the idea 
of his religious views never came into my mind in that connection. 

The personal relations between Prof. H and myself, up to the 

time when he requested me to present his application for leave of 
absence, were of the most intimate and agreeable kind. There had 
never been any coldness between us for any reason. We conversed 
frequently together on religious subjects, and there was much sjm- 
pathy between us. If inquired of, he will ratify this statement, I 
doubt not. 

Your next four questions so run into each other, that I can ex- 
press my opinion on the whole subject more briefly, more intel- 
ligibly, and, I tmst, more satisfactorily to you, by a general state- 
ment, than by a specific i/es or no. This I do as follows : — 

I repudiate the Trinitai-ian's view of the Holy Spirit. I do not 
believe it to be a third person in, or a third part of, the Deity. 

In my opinion, God's Holy Spuit is his will, his influence, an 
emanation proceeding from him, and pervading every part of the 
moral universe, in the same manner as his omnipotent power per- 
vades all space. 

I do not believe that God's Spirit acts spasmodically or convul- 
sively, but that it is as strong, steady, and immutable as its Author, 
universally surrounding every moral agent, just as the atmosphere 
surrounds our bodies, yet not in such a way as to destroy our free 
agency. 

We are born with natural appetites and passions which have no 
relation whatever to God's holy law, to reUgion, or to duty. This is 
the " carnal heart " of the Scriptures. This is the " carnal mind," 
which, as St. Paul says to the Romans, and through them to all 
mankind, is " enmity against God; for it is not subject to his law, 
neither can be." 

Afterwards our rational and moral powers are developed : 
" That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and 
afterwards that which is spiritual." By these rational and moral 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 535 

powers, and such other instrumentalities as Grod gives us, — ^ parents, 
schools, the gospel and its ministrations, &e., — we learn something 
of what God is ; and, just in proportion to our correct ideas of his 
nature and attributes, we see and feel that we ought to love and 
obey him. But this " carnal mind " does not love and obey him. 
Now comes the struggle. On the one side are all our animal 
and worldly desires, propensities, lusts ; on the other, our reason 
and conscience, with all the persuasions, appeals, urgencies, of 
Grod's character, influence, or spirit, forever surrounding our souls, 
and acting upon them, as the sea surrounds the creatures that in- 
habit it. K the former prevails, then, at the end of every struggle, 
we become more hardened in sin, more callous to the entreaties of 
the gospel, more alienated from God, and defiant of his power and 
judgment. But if the latter prevails, then the will or determin- 
ing power of the mind ranges itself on the side of Jehovah, resolves 
to seek for and to obey his will, and begins in heavenly earnest- 
ness to subdue and control all the natui-al impulses which lead to 
disobedience and sin ; and not only so, but from day to day to con- 
form ourselves, that is, our thoughts, wishes, lives, more and more 
" unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 

The manner in which I have often expressed myself is this : We 
are to imitate the painter or sculptor, who seeks first to become ac- 
quainted with the most perfect model ; and he then strives to copy 
or transfer that model, feature by feature, lineament by lineament, 
expression by expression, to his canvas or his marble. So we, hav- 
ing decided, under the influences above mentioned, that it is our 
duty, and our highest interest, and our only freedom, to love God 
with all our heart and understanding and mind and strength, and 
our neighbor as ourself, should strive to grow up into the likeness 
of God and Christ, eradicating something here, supplying something 
there ; moulding, shaping, conforming, until it may be said without 
blasphemy, that man is in the image of God. 

The occasions of this first resolve or determination to live a rightr 
eous life, and to dedicate ourselves to the service of our Maker, 
may be as various as all the events of our outward life, or as all the 
conscious mental experiences of our inward souls. It may be a 
funeral or a bridal, a birth or a death-bed, a prayer or a sermon, a 



536 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

lonely walk in the woods or a crowded religious meeting. It may 
be a remembered word uttered by a mother to our childhood ; or it 
may be a blasphemous oath uttered by ourselves, which God hurls 
back to rive the heart that conceived it, as the lightning rives the 
oak. God is not confined to one method : yet I believe some 
methods are far more likely to be successful than others ; and we 
must learn which are the best methods of doing these holy things, 
just as men have learned the best methods of doing natural things. 

Sometimes the change is sudden, as in the case of St. Paul. 
Sometimes the change is so gradual, that the subject of it can him- 
self fix no point of time when he said (to quote your expression) , 
" Self is wrong, and Christ is right," as was the ease with Dr. 
Chalmers and many other pious men. 

You ask me, whether, "if my lectures should move the whole 
school to devotion and tender solicitude for their salvation, I would 
oppose such results." Well do you say that you " do not hesi- 
tate at my answer." Had you not added this, I should have ex- 
claimed, " May God pardon you for such a question ! " The most 
rapturous moments of my life are when young people come to me in 
private, or ivrite to me, saying that their whole view and plan of 
life, their ideas of duty and of destiny, have been changed by what 
they have heard from me. Thanks be to God, the occasions of this 
kind are not few, but many; and there is scarcely a week in my life, 
when, by letter or otherwise, I have not some such assurance. 

I have now, my dear su% attempted to answer, not merely your 
inquiries, but your inquuing mind. I believe I have covered every 
point, and made a wide margin besides. I may not have used your 
technical expressions ; but my expressions grow out of my system 
of belief, and belong to it. I have a great desire that what I have 
said may be satisfactory to you, because I believe you to be a candid, 
honest, and sincere man. 

But, having now endeavored to reply to your inquiries because I 
respect your motives, I have something to add on my own account. 

I think no man, or body of men, has a right to propound such 
questions to me. My life belongs to the world ; and I hold myself 
at all times answerable to it for my conduct : but my opinions are 
between God and myself, and, except so far as I wish to avow them, 



LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 537 

are sacred and inviolable. The old inquisitorial torture does not 
differ one wMt in kind, but only in degree, if a man can be held to 
answer anybody's questions in religious matters, under penalty of 
loss, whether of money or character or position. 

While, therefore, I am rather glad of an opportunity to say thus 
much to you, and have no objection against this letter's being seen 
and scanned by proper persons, — that is, persons actuated by a right 
motive, — yet can you suppose for a moment, my dear sir, that I am 

going to place myself on a public stand for such men as Mr. M 

or Mr. L or Parson L to catechise, or those who may 

keep out of sight, but instigate them to inquiry ? I am not for sale. 
I am not in quest of any political office. I have a duty to perform 
in maintaining the inviolability of religious opinions ; and, if I yield 
to the " question," I set the example by which others may be co- 
erced into yielding. I occupy my present position at great per- 
sonal and social sacrifice. Released from this, I can earn, during 
three months in the year, at least a thousand dollars more than my 
salary, and have the other nine months to myself. I am here an 
exile from all the personal friends of my youth and life, and deprived 
of almost all those abundant means of literary and scientific dehght, 
which, until four years ago, constituted so important a part of my 
legitimate and laudable enjoyments. I had learned from books, 
and was told when I was invited to come here, that the " Chi'is- 
tian connection " looked at life, and not at creeds. Confiding in 
the truth of this statement, I was requested to write some account 
of the plan and scope of this institution, to be published in its first 
prospectus. I did so. I sent copies of it in manuscript to Mr. 
Merrifield, to ]\Ir. Holmes, to Mr. Edmunds of Boston, and to Mr. 
How of New Bedford, &c. It received their unanimous approval. 
It was afterwards published, — a large edition, — and was sent 
throughout the whole " connection." If any exception was taken 
to it by any one, I never heard of it. Herewith I send you a copy 
of it, that you may see in its closing pages what was said in regard 
to sectarian teaching and to dogmatic theology. But, when I came, 
I soon found that I was never among a more sectarian people in my 
life than no inconsiderable number of these were. The whole interest 
which some of them manifested in the school was, whether I would 



538 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

say their religious hie, hcec, hoc, after them. One man wanted to 
know if all the teachers belonged to the Christian denomination ; 
and on being answered, " More than half, but not all," he wished 
to know if his child could not be taught by those only who did 
belong to it. 

Mr. Merrifield gave me the fullest assurance that the school was 
not to be a sectarian school ; yet, after I came here, I found he had 
been at work, for months before those assurances were given me, to 
ingraft a biblical school — that is, a theological school — on it at 
this place. In February, 1854, Dr. Bellows came out here, and 
met the then Boai-d of Trustees ; and the whole matter was opened 
and discussed. He promised the contributions of the Unitarians if 
the sectarian character or idea of the theological school should be 
abandoned ; and it was exphcitly renounced by a vote. In conse- 
quence of this, the New- York Unitarians gave twenty-five thousand 
dollars ; which the college has accepted and used, and now demands 
that it shall be denominational, — not merely denominational, but 
metaphysically and transcendentally so. You heard the question 

put by Mr. L to Mr. J , when, at the conference, the 

latter was testifying from personal knowledge and observation to 
the religious character and highly favorable religious influence of 
the school: "Whether the religious teachings at the college did 
not tend to make the students live pure and virtuous lives, and do 
good to their fellow-men, rather than to love Grod through faith in 
Jesus Christ, as applied by the Holy Spirit? " Can any thing in 
"Punch" beat this? 

Yet, on a moment's reflection, you cannot but see that you are 
asking me to appear in a newspaper conducted by one of this com- 
bination of men, and there surrender myself to the confessional. 

You heard some of their alleged causes of ofience at the late con- 
ference. One was that they had not been invited to the commence- 
ment-dinner given in part by the graduating class. Another was 

that I did not go to Mr. L , and reconcile him to our course 

at the college (against which he took exceptions) , instead of waiting 
to let him come to me. 

But I have said enough to show you, I trust, that it would bo 
unworthy of me to submit myself to the public in the manner pro- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 539 

posed, and that the time necessarily occupied in answering questions 
respecting the agency of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of men, 
respecting the atonement, the resurrection, &c., is time that I ought 
rather to devote to the manners, morals, and literary progress of our 
students. This is not a theological school ; and therefore theologi- 
cal questions do not come within the scope of its administration. I 
trust, that, on reflection, you will give an affirmative answer to this 
view of the subject. 

One word on another subject, and I will reheve your patience. 

It is said we have no revivals here. The reason of this is the 
serious and thoughtful character of our students on religious subjects. 
Take a set of drinking, gambhng, swearing, blaspheming, and god- 
less students, come upon them suddenly, make them see their sin- 
ful condition, and they will be frightened into as vehement a demon- 
stration of then alarms as they had before given of their profligacies 
and revellings. But this effect can never be produced upon a 
company of thoughtful, serious young people, whose minds have 
been systematically turned in the direction of their religious con- 
dition, and to whom the ideas of their duty and their destiny are 
familiar, and who have led an exemplary life. This is precisely the 
case with our students. They do not receive religious excitements 
like savages, but like men of intelligence and morals, and generally 
pure and correct purposes. This is the true explanation of the 
complaint made against us. 

I mourn that this most unjust and unwise movement will tend to 

alienate more or less of the "Christians" ft-om us, and thus deprive 

them of advantages they so much need. I pray God that the folly 

of men may no longer stand in the way of the improvement of their 

children. 

With great personal regard, yours very truly, 

HOKACE MANN. 



YELiiOW Springs, Sept. 28. 
Rev. 0. J. Wait. 

My dear Sir, — I thank you for your kind, frank, whole-souled 
letter. Having had the pleasure of only a very slight personal ac- 
quaintance with you, I had no indications whatever of the character 



540 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

of your religious views on the points suggested. I had made up my 
mind, therefore, to the probability that I was, by my own act and 
my own statement, building up a waU of partition between us, 
which, so far as the interests of the college are concerned, might 
array you against its present administration forever. 

But I had no alternative. You seemed entitled to know the 
truth ; and I took the risk of giving it. Truth never yet failed to 
stand by my conscience ; and I hope I never shall fail to stand by 
that. 

I have read your letter again and again, and thought it aU through 
many times again. I have the greatest desire to comply with your 
wishes. They prevail upon me so strongly, that I have several 
times been brought up at least within sight of consent. But the 
combined operation of all my faculties, the conclusions of my 
judgment, interpose a negative. I find the following points 
coming out in large stature and with a clear outline in my mind : — 

1. The grounds suggested by you, and ui-ged by them, are not 
the true grounds of opposition. I should, therefore, be just as far 
from satisfying their minds afterwards as before. If not invited to 

the next college-dinner, or if Mr. L 's skin should be rujffled, 

and I should not leave my three hundred pupils to go and smooth 

it, I should have my peace all to make over again. Mr. S 's 

first, and so far only, cause of complaint against me (as he after- 
wards told me himself in an interview which I sought) was, that, 
when I was to perform the chapel-services on Sunday, I did not go 
down and give him a special invitation to attend. You speak well 
about a class of men not competent to have the direction of a potato- 
patch. My dear sir, there are souls so small, that, if a million of 
them were sprinkled on the polished surface of a diamond, they 
would not make it dusty. As this imputation is not the real point 
of the objection, I shall not answer the objection by answering tliis. 

2. If I answer this, I shall have a battery of others to answer. I 
shall have set the example of answering, and shall, with some plau- 
sibiUty, be held to follow it. Should I indorse in any satisfactory 
manner up to any point, and stop there, there would be the begin- 
ning of my heresy. I cannot well caiTy on a theological discussion 
or controversy and Antioch College at the same time. 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 541 

3. , Was there ever such a thing required or expected of any 
other president of a college ? What would be thought of such a 
course at Amherst, at WilUams, at Harvard, or at Yale ? The 
very publication of the thing would inflame and arouse the jealousy 
of hundreds, which jealousy is now asleep. 

4. I feel, and cannot get the feeling out of my bones, as though 
I should always be exposed to the unworthy imputation of having 
answered in order to retain my place. Though nothing would be 
farther from the truth, yet how would that truth be made to ap- 
pear ? * 

To those vi^lio may have read in Weiss' s Life of Theodore 
Parker the letter to Dr. Howe written from Europe on 
occasion of Mr. Mann's death, — a letter which betrays 
all those traits of mind and heart which Mr. Parker's 
friends least like to remember, — the foregoing letters to 
Mr. Wait will be very satisfactory. They are a complete 
answer to the charge of having concealed from the leading 
members of the " Christian" sect his differences of opinion 
from them ; on which assumption, Mr. Parker proceeds to 
draw the inference that " Mr. Mann did not know that a 
straight line is the shortest way between two points in 
morals as well as in mathematics." They are but a 
sample of his plain dealing with them all on proper occa- 
sions. To that extraordinary letter, so self-contradictory, 
as well as so inconsistent with the tone of all Mr. Parker's 
letters to Mr. Mann, many of which have been inserted in 
these pages, this whole volume is an answer more forcible 
than any special pleading could be. The last letter Mr. 
Mann wrote to Mr. Parker is the following introduction 
of a " Christian " minister : — 

March 1, 1858. 
To Rev. Theodore Parker. 

My dear Mr. Parker, — I take great pleasure in introducing to 

your acquaintance one of my dearest friends, and one of the best and 

truest of men, — the Rev. Austin Craig. 

* The manuscript letter is incomplete. 



542 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

You and lie may not agree in exegesis ; but I know no two men, 
who in all matters of duty to man, or love to Grod, would be more 
in unison. 

I commend him to your fellowship ; and remain, as ever, 

Most truly yours, 

HORACE MANN. 

Its generous confidence and comprehensive charity are 
in very striking contrast with the letter of Mr. Parker. 
But it is perhaps fair to remember, that, when Mr. Parker 
wrote his chaotic letter, he was so enfeebled in mind by 
illness, as to be scarcely responsible. 

At this juncture, Mr. Mann was urged to go to New 
York to attend a meeting held in the interest of the col- 
lege. 

New York, Oct. 7, 1858. 

The Christian Convention has been in session to-day, and I have 
been present almost all day. This afternoon, Antioch has been up 
for discussion, and we have had a good time. . . . Mr. Fay and Mr. 
Haley made speeches ; and certainly they were received with a de- 
gree of favor for which I was not at all prepared. The discussion 
is not closed yet, and in the morning we mean to have Dr. Bellows 

himself present and speechifying. Mr. S , who used to be at 

Yellow Springs, was present, and as fall of evil as the first original 
serpent ; but as yet he has made no impression. 

Oct. 10. . . . We had a capital convention so far as results were 
concerned. I think all opposition was quenched. Mr. Holmes 
came out very fervently for Antioch. Mr. S did his pret- 
tiest against us, but dared to do nothing openly, and was balked 
at every point. He found no party to co-operate with him. 

Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Oct. 20, 1858. 
Kev. Daniel Austin. 

Dear Sir, — I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt, 
this day, of a check on the Rockingham Bank, Portsmouth, N.H., 
for fifty dollars ; for which please accept my thanks. 



LIFE OP HOE ACE MANN. 543 

I wish I could respond as you desire to your friendly suggestion 
about my health. I have been and am still doing the work of two 
men, — a necessity occasioned by the lowness of our finances. All 
my vital organs are in good working order, except my brain. That 
is overtasked, and threatens to give way before its time ; and I may 
yet be an example of a violation of the laws I have so much sought 
to expound. Do you ask me how I can reconcile this to my sense 
of duty ? I answer, Only because I am engaged in a work worth 
more than a thousand such men as I am ; and I must not lose that 
to save myself. 

Yours in great haste, 

HORACE MANN. 



Yellow Springs, Nov. 8, 1858. 

My dear Downeb, — I have just received yours. . . . 

I am rejoiced to hear that you have at last found a "pocket." 
Perhaps I should prefer that you should open this rich vein rather 
than any other man after myself. I do not think it is " foolish," 
as you say, to make money : the folly generally consists in spend- 
ing it. 

I am very sorry to hear of Parker's illness. If his great head 
breaks down, why should not my small one? . . . 

Don't be alarmed if you hear great reverberations about us. We 
expelled four of the boys engaged in the paper, and suspended two. 
... I presume it will make a great show in Orthodox papers. My 
brain is, I fear, worse than yours. The last year's work, with last 
vacation's work on the back of it, was too much; and I am suffering 
severely. 

Yours most truly, 

H. M. 

From this time, the tired brain knew no more respite. 
Labors accumulated, because a failure of the funds that 
had been privately subscribed to pay the faculty and 
teachers obliged some of them to leave their duties for 
employment that would pay their current expenses ; and 



544 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

this threw more work upon those who were left. Again 
Mr. Mann implored Mr. Craig to stand by the institution, 
and sustain it with his valuable influence as long as it 
floated upon the waves of uncertainty, which were ren- 
dered more boisterous than ever by contending elements. 
But Mr. Craig had lost hope, and would fain have plucked 
his friend away. He felt that he was working at too 
great a disadvantage, and that either tlie community 
around him must be more sympathetic with the move- 
ment, or the college must be sustained by ample funds, 
to enable it to act independently of the evil influences, 
that abounded. He heartily approved of Mr. Mann's 
measures, but did not like to see him sacrificing himself 
so utterly. It seemed, indeed, like " casting pearls before 
swine " to throw so rich an experience into the midst of 
a people who could not see the difference between a 
great and a small man, and who did not know a good 
man when they saw one. But Mr. Mann resisted every 
entreaty to turn his back upon an enterprise from which 
he had hoped such great results. If he had not been 
influenced by his own purity of motive in this persistence 
to believe that the motives of others who wished to cling 
to him and to the institution were as pure as his own, 
he might have seen clearly that the hour had come 
when renunciation of the long-cherished hope would 
be the path of wisdom for himself, unless he felt ready 
to fall a sacrifice to it. He was reminded of the warn- 
ing given him by his friend Mr. Combe, who begged 
him on a former occasion to save himself for a watchman 
in the march of improvement, that the fruits of his expe- 
rience might not be lost prematurely ; but, although he 
was not without fears that his strength was failing, he 
fondly hoped success would restore his energies. He had 
of late been obliged to withdraw, more than he had pre- 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 545 

viously allowed himself to do, even for purposes of rest, 
from social intercourse with his coadjutors, although he 
was aware that outside influences were plied to estrange 
them. Even his children had to be guarded from dis- 
turbing his short intervals of rest ; for they still retained 
their love for their wonted place upon his knee, and he 
still extended his arms for them when they appeared 
ready to pour out their confidences and their questions. 
He would say, " Let me have the house quiet ; " " I must 
go and hide in the glen, for I am not able to see com- 
pany " (and at last he could not bear even the children's 
company in such walks) ; " Soothe me, for I am too 
tired;" and he would fall asleep the moment the press- 
ure of engagements was lifted. He shrank from contact 
with persons who pained him, whether by their own de- 
pression or appreliension, or by their association with 
painful circumstances. He found repose in not seeing 
faces. Yet he did not yield : he would breast the pos- 
sible wave that was to break over the institution, and was 
always ready to spring to the rescue when any call to act 
in its interests came to him. 

The magnetism of his own zeal and devotion to a cause 
he thought to be so important had stimulated his Eastern 
friends, who rallied nobly, headed by the venerable Josiah 
Quincy ; and they nobly redeemed their pledges when the 
hour came ; but the West had failed. One last effort 
was made by his family to induce him to resign, but in 
vain. He felt that the experience he had gained in these 
laborious years, added to earlier experience so dearly 
bought, would enable him to effect what no other man, 
even of superior ability, could do so well in that place 
and under the circumstances. Some friends, who knew 
what would be the consequences if he must still bear the 
burden of tlie pecuniary difl&culties of other years of debt 

35 



546 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

and anxiety, were firm in the conviction that the college 
should not be purchased by those who remained true to 
it under such disadvantageous prospects ; there being 
not a dollar in the exchequer to carry it on after pur- 
chase. In consequence of their remonstrances, temporary 
provision for its support was made ; but it was not money 
deposited in the bank, and no one who subscribed to it 
was responsible to any tribunal but his own conscience. 
The promissory notes, however, some of which proved 
as good as bullion, were put into Mr. Mann's hands, to 
be paid on his demand. The Rev. Mr. Pay, for one, 
hazarded all he was worth upon the hope of future suc- 
cess. The college was bought in June, at the appraise- 
ment price ; there being not one bid from any other quar- 
ter. Circumstances were now so far changed, that an 
independent body of men, a close corporation, owned the 
premises. This was so much more respectable a basis 
than the former one, which had not a single feature to 
recommend it, that, to Mr. Mann's mind, all other obsta- 
cles promised to vanish. It was, in reality, to be a new 
birth. The sectarian feature of the charter, that two- 
thirds of the trustees and two-thirds of the college faculty 
should be of the " Christian " denomination, still re- 
mained in it, it is true ; but the present owners were 
disposed to be liberal, and he hoped further consideration 
might lead to a change in this illiberal charter. 

The discussion, the purchase, and all the collateral ex- 
citing circumstances, were followed in a few days by the 
commencement exercises of the graduating class of that 
year. It has already been said that the three months 
previous to this meeting of the trustees, which caused 
such an unwonted excitement of feeling, had been a pe- 
riod of extraordinary toil as well as anxiety. Two of the 
professors were still absent ; one ill, the other preaching 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 547 

for his daily bread. The whole care of the graduating 
class was left upon Mr. Mann's hands. They wanted sub- 
jects for their graduating exercises ; they wanted criti- 
cisms upon their productions. 

No members were chosen from the class, as in other 
colleges, to receive special honors ; but as many speakers 
as the time would allow took part, and all who chose to 
prepare had equal claims to attention. Many of them were 
very far from home, or from any other literary aid ; and 
Mr. Mann attended to them all. Unfortunately, all his 
children were ill, one at a great distance, the other two 
at home, requiring constant care and attendance : there- 
fore he was not only left unwatched, when, as it afterward 
proved, he most needed watching, but he was anxiously 
watching others. 

On the appointed day of public exercises and jubilation, 
he sat down early in the morning to finish the " Baccalau- 
reate," which he had hastily prepared for the occasion, 
and which he carried to chapel, without having had time 
to read it over himself. 

He could not preside over such a scene unmoved. He 
knew all that had been hoped, dreaded, and suffered by 
many. He would fain have been silent with his joy^ and 
have found his rest in it. But no : he must be the most 
active participant in the common rejoicing, after so many 
weary days and restless nights. He was described to the 
invalids at home as looking " too happy, but very tired." 
The festivities of the day, commencing at seven in the 
morning, lasted twelve hours ; and the public adjourned 
in heavy numbers from the college-dinner to his house, 
where a crowded levee was held till late at night. 

The next day he was nearly speechless with fatigue ; 
but instead of being laid quietly away in a darkened 
chamber, and all sounds shut out, an important commit- 



548 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

tee meeting was pending, which lasted substantially two 
days longer. It was feared that paralysis would follow 
such a strain as this had been : but, instead of that, a burn- 
ing fever raged in his veins, which there seemed not then 
coolness enough on earth to assuage ; and sleep, his only 
restorative, was no more for him in this world. He 
struggled with it several weeks, fighting it at every step, 
instead of yielding to it, — not consciously perhaps, not 
deliberately, but feverishly. The weather was intensely 
hot. The very soil was turned into burning sand. Only 
hot winds blew. He roamed about the house, extending 
himself, now on the sofa, now on the floors, praying for 
rain, mourning over the time he was losing for prepara- 
tion of duties to come, but conscious only of suffering, not 
of near death. How could such vitality cease ? Ill as he 
was, he did not resign himself a prisoner to his apartment 
but three days ; and, when he could no longer rise, he 
saw grouped before him the things to be done. His last 
expression of interest in the world, outside his immediate 
sphere, was his desire to hear what Kossuth was doing in 
Italy. When he heard the treaty of Villa-Franca read, 
he made a sign that he could hear no more. It excited 
him too deeply, sending the blood surging to his brain. 
It was well ; for the next sentence would have produced 
a revulsion of feeling more dangerous to bear than any 
joy could be ; and he was never told the sad reverse. 

Nature began to give way more perceptibly. At last 
he begged for profound silence, " except George's hum- 
ming: do not stop that." He loved music from the 
human voice ; it soothed and diverted his busy and fe- 
vered thoughts from affairs. But he could not listen to 
words even when sung : they wakened too many associ- 
ations. One day, while thus soothed, he heard drops 
fall thick and fast upon the tin roof of the piazza. It was 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 549 

a month siuce a rain-drop had fallen. He said, " Stop 
a moment, and let me listen to that music ! " — "It 
is heavenly music," one replied. " Yes ! " he said very 
emphatically ; and after a long pause, during which his 
countenance beamed with a delighted smile, as he lis- 
tened to a copious shower, he whispered, "I am making 
agricultural calculations: I cannot help it." The rain 
did not last long, and then he wanted the earthly strain 
again. 

For many days, no food passed his lips but a little 
strained gooseberry-juice. He could not swallow a drop 
of water without pain : but relays of devoted students 
brought him fresh draughts every hour from the only 
cool well in the neighborhood ; and the only physical 
pleasure left to him was rinsing his mouth with it, and 
letting it " percolate over his lips." It seemed strange 
' that no special revelation occurred to show what would 
quench such internal fires as consumed him. He had no 
confidence in any medical treatment that was at hand, 
and his brain was morbidly active upon the subject ; but 
when told that he must resign all care, even of himself, 
he tried to obey. At last a flash of lightning pain passed 
over him, which, he was sure, had disorganized his very 
substance. It was too true. But, after the rest of his 
frame could suffer no more, the brain continued preter- 
naturally active for two days ; and all his former life 
passed in review before him, — its joys, its sorrows, and 
its trials. 

Loving and devoted students had watched over him 
and his sick children all the nights of many weeks. Where 
so many served lovingly, no one can be mentioned with 
prominence, without doing injustice to others. But the 
Rev. Mr. Fay, upon whom the coming calamity was already 
doing fearful work, allowed himself neither sleep nor res- 



550 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

pite ; forgetting that he, too, was mortal. To no other in- 
dividual out of his own family did the death of Mr. Mann 
so alter the world. Indeed, such was the effect of his in- 
consolable grief and anxious watching, that his own health, 
both of bodj and mind, was long after hanging upon a 
thread ; and even now he shrinks from a review of those 
painful hours of alternate hope and dread. If the im- 
parting of his own vitality would have availed to snatch 
his friend from his doom, he could not have given it more 
freely ; but not even his assiduous magnetism could meet 
the case. All arts of man seemed unavailing. 

Dr. Pulte arrived the evening before the last day. He 
gave but faint hope. Mr. Mann had not expected him ; 
and, when he went to his bedside, he looked at him pene- 
tratingly, and ])egged him to let him feel his head, which 
he playfully examined with his hands, in his own spright- 
ly way pronouncing it good and able, and then resigned 
himself to the examination. Dr. Pulte did not express 
his fears to him, but was obliged to return immediately to 
Cincinnati, after giving directions for a last attempt to 
save him. 

The next morning, after a restless and troubled night, 
he begged for quiet in earnest but gentle words. 

" Let the college gate be fastened open, that I may not 
hear it swing ; let there be no step, no rustling dress, 
no face, but your own ; communicate with others, not by 
words, but by slips of paper. Let me rest." 

All was hushed for a little while. But he could not 
sleep. Could such a man be allowed to die unawares ? 
Pain was soothed : he was evidently unconscious that Ms 
hours were numbered. 

When he was told, he opened his eyes quickly; but his 
countenance only changed to an illuminated expression, 
that made it difficult not to rejoice with him that he was 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 551 

soon to tread the glorious path which so often kindled his 
imagination, instead of the thorny one of this world. 

" Ask Dr. C. how long," he said. 

" Three hours at most," was the answer. 

" I do not feel it to be so," he replied ; "but, if it is so, 

I have something to say. Send for B " (a student 

who had given much anxiety) . The head which had long 
been covered with the damps of death became hot as a 
cannon-ball as he roused himself. After speaking a few 
tender words to his family, he turned to the young man 
as he entered the room, followed by others who had heard 
the sad rumor, till the apartment was filled with people, 
some of whom, in the fashion of that country, were 
strangers. He spoke earnestly to his young friend, and 
called one after another of his students and his friends to 
him, and for two hours poured forth his great heart and 
soul in inspired words, with a depth of voice, and vigor of 
muscle, wonderful to behold in one lately so prostrate. It 
was as if he drew strength from the fountain of future 
life into which he was about to plunge. He abode ever 
in the palace of Truth ; and from its portals he now said 
to each one an appropriate word, tenderly but sincerely, 
and so discriminatingly, that one trembled to listen. The 
hours can never be forgotten, either by those who were 
warned not to abuse, but only righteously to use, the ex- 
ceeding riches of God's goodness, or by those over whom 
he poured his unbounded love and blessing. 

Many saw duty in a new light as he again and again 
uttered the words, " Man, duty, God ! " and prefigured 
by his appeals to them what they might do with such 
powers as he described them to possess. But no repeti- 
tion of his words can convey the fervor of his spirit, the 
tenderness of his love, as expressed to all around him. 

At last he said to Mr. Fay, " I should like to have Mr. 



552 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

Fay make a short prayer, low, peaceful, grateful ! " after 
which he again addressed those who stood round him, and 
sent affectionate messages to the absent, — to his son, to 
his sister, to Mr. Craig, and to other old friends. Promi- 
nent among those he remembered was Prof. Gary.* 

" Dear Gary ! — solid, steadfast, well-balanced, always 
wise, always right, always firm, — tell him how much I 
loved him ! " And again he murmured, " Good, reliable, 
judicious, firm, gentle, beautiful Mr. Gary ! " his voice 
gaining energy again as he went on. " And those good 
young men, Mr. Fay, who have always done their duty, 
— how I love them ! Tell them how I love them. No 
words can express how I love them ! " 

When asked if he was not exhausting himself, he said, 
" No : it rests me." 

More than once he exclaimed, " Oh, my beautiful plans 
for the college ! I meant that Mr. Fay should prepare 
himself to be the president of this college ; for I know no 
man living who will take it, who will carry it on as well 
as he." To Mr. Fay, who did not hear this, he said, 
" Preach God's laws, Mr. Fay ; preach them, preach 
them!" — his voice rising each time he repeated the 
words, his trembling arm raised aloft as if to invoke 
Heaven's blessing upon him, his whole frame quivering 
with emotion. " You have more power over the public 
mind of the West than any man I know," he added after 
a pause. Then most energetically he repeated his 
entreaty that he would use it ; for the world needed it. 



* This gentleman had taken the place in the college of his beloved nephew, Calvin 
Pennell. Jlr. Gary soon filled Mr. Pennell's place of appreciative co-operutor and 
counsellor. He never needed to be told what were the peculiar requisites of a 
professor in an institution founded on the plan of educating young men and women 
together. His presence created order; his manners precluded opposition, and 
inspired the right sentiment for the occasion, without word or remonstrance. 
It would be difficult to describe his value to Mr. Mann or to the institution. 



LIFE OF HOEACB MANN. 553 

" God ! may he preach them till the light drive out 
the darkness ! " 

To his children he said, " When you wish to know 
what to do, ask yourselves what Christ would have done 
in the same circumstances." 

It is impossible to record all his words, uttered in a clear, 
musical voice, that rang out strong as in his best days, 
now to his family, now to his students, now in memory of 
the absent. At last he again asked for quiet, and thought 
he could sleep. Motioning gently with his hand, he said, 
" Will not the friends fall back ? " He wanted air and 
repose ; but the crowd inconsiderately lingered, render- 
ing the close of his noble life a struggle for breath instead 
of a peaceful slumber. He could not even speak to his 
much-loved nephew, Mr. Pennell, who arrived at that 
moment. 

The chills of death shook him painfully ; and he asked 
for blankets, which were heated and wrapped round him. 
Stimulants were administered, which brought no relief, 
but gave him temporary delirium, in which he uttered 
exclamations that showed how deeply he felt, and how 
keenly he remembered, some of the heart-trials that had 
been instrumental in cutting him off thus prematurely. 

The strong brain found it hard to die. At last, God 
mercifully gave him rest; but "death" is not the word 
for such a translation. 

I close this Memoir with his own last words spoken in 
public, which no one can read without feeling that they 
were unconsciously prophetic : — 



554 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS OF 1859. 

Young Ladies and Gentlemen of the Graduating Glass, — 

After journeying together for so many years on our passage 
tkrougli life, we are about to part. Another day, ay, another hour, 
and we separate. Would to God I could continue this journey 
with you thi'ough all its futui-e course ! There is no suffering of a 
physical nature which I could survive, that I would not gladly 
bear, if thereby I could be set back to your starting-point, — to the 
stage of life where you are now standing. When I think, after the 
experience of one life, what I could and would do in an amended 
edition of it ; what I could and would do, more and better than 
I have done, for the cause of humanity, of temperance, and of 
peace ; for breaking the rod of the oppressor ; for the higher edu- 
cation of the world, and especially for the higher education of the 
best part of it, — woman : when I think of these things, I feel 
the Phoenix-spirit glowing within me ; I pant, I yearn, for another 
warfare in behalf of right, in hostility to wrong, where, without 
furlough, and without going into winter-quarters, I would enlist for 
another fifty-years' campaign, and fight it out for the glory of Grod 
and the welfare of man. I would volunteer to join a " forlorn 
hope " to assault the very citadel of Satan, and cariy it by storm, 
and bind the old heresiarch (he is the worst heresiarch who does 
wrong) for a thousand years ; and if in that time he would not re- 
pent, of which I confess myself not without hope, then to give him 
his final quietus. 

But alas ! that cannot be ; for, while the Phoenix-spirit burns with- 
in, the body becomes ashes. Not only would the sword fall from 
my hand ; my hand would fall from the sword. 

I cannot go with you. You must pursue your conquering march 
alone. 

What, then, can I dol ■ Can I enshrine myspnit in your hearts, 
so that when I fall in the ranks (as I hope to fall in the very 
front ranks of this contest), and when my arm shall no longer 
strike, and my voice no longer cheer, you may pursue the conflict, 
and win the victoiy ? — the victoiy of righteousness under the ban- 
ner of Jesus Chiist. This transferrence of my enthusiasm, of the 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 555 

results of all my experience and study, into your young and ath- 
letic frames, is what I desire to do ; what, as far as my enfeebled 
strength allows, I shall now attempt to do. 

But, first, the new circumstances under which we assemble to-day ; 
the new men whom I see on this stage occupying the seats of official 
dignity and honor ; or, where the individual men are not new, the 
new functions they have come here to execute ; in fine, the new 
auspices under which this commencement is held, — demand a word. 

This is Antioeh College still, the same as we have known and 
loved it heretofore ; but, according to the doctrine of metempsycho- 
sis, it is by the transmigration of the old soul into a new body. 
The old body, with its works (that is, its scholarships and its debts, 
and its promises to pay without paying) , is dead ; and in its stead 
we have the resurrection of a new and glorified body, — a body 
without scholarships, without debts or pecuniary trespasses of any 
kind. 

But this beneficent change has not been accomplished without a 
great struggle. In contests where the antagonist powers of good and 
evil come into collision, especially where the conflict is waged on a 
conspicuous arena, the respective combatants will summon their 
auxiUaries from above and below. We feel as if, during the last 
two years, our enemies had enlisted their most potent alhes against 
us, but such as bore no tokens of coming from above. We feel as 
if the cause of right and truth had at last triumphed ; and therefore, 
though ready to forget and forgive, we feel as if we have a right to 
congratulate ourselves, and as if it were a duty to thank Heaven for 
our success. 

Our opponents remind me of a half-crazed Italian philosopher, 
who, many years ago, invented a seismometer (a seismometer is 
an instrument for measuring the force of earthquakes) ; and, when 
Vesuvius was in blast, he went up its sides, thinking to measure the 
intensity when the mountain shook, just as a physician feels a sick 
man's pulse. The concussion and the lava and the thunder came, 
but a little harder than had been expected ; and experimenter, 
seismometer, and all, were exhaled into everlasting deliquium. 

In one of the old Latin authors, of which my young friends here 
will be likely to have a fresher recollection than I, I remember the 



556 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

story of one C Flavius Fimbria, who stabbed Q. Sccevola at tlie 
funeral of Marius. But Sesevola recovered of his stabbing : where- 
upon the assassin commenced a prosecution against him in the Roman 
courts because he did not die of his wounds. To make the cases 
parallel, we must expect a prosecution against Antioch College 
for not having died when it was poisoned by calumny and false- 
hood. 

But I retui-n to my purpose of striving to transfuse into your 
bosoms, for the life-work that is before you, some of the thoughts 
and emotions that have animated me. 

Answer these questions ! youth just starting on your earthly 
and yom- immortal career : — 

What are the sources of my welfare? What, also, are the 
sources of my misery? 

There are two som'ces of human happiness. There are two also 
of human misery. 

There is the happiness that alights upon us without any agency 
or forethought of our own. It comes to us, or wells up within us, 
ready-made and complete ; and our first consciousness of it is in the 
joy it bestows. Such is the spontaneous, unbought happiness of in- 
fancy and childhood ; the happiness which a mother's beaming face 
sends thrilling through the frame of a babe ; the happiness which is 
felt when a father's strong arm rescues a child from danger and 
from fear ; the happiness which we have in the natural gratification 
of all our senses and faculties. 

The other kind of happiness is that which comes through our 
own procurement or co-operation, where, while God does his part, 
he leaves us to do our part ; and so our gratification is the joint 
product of both divine and human agencies. 

Hence, of human happiness, there are two sources, the Heaven- 
derived and the self-derived, — Heaven supplying us with the 
means : or, what is far more common, our happiness is the result 
of the interflow and commingling of both, — Heaven's bounty and 
our effort or instrumentality ; the first performing the incompara- 
bly larger share of the work, though the latter an indispensable 
share. 

So there are two sources of human misery. One kind befalls us. 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 557 

It comes upon us as an aerolite might fall out of the skies upon a 
man's head ; as the tortoise which the eagle carried aloft in its talons, 
and dropped upon the bald cranium of JEschylus, and cracked it ; 
as hereditary diseases come upon children; or as all the curses of a 
bad government or a false religion descend upon innocent genera- 
tions ; or as Adam's fall, whether we understand it hterally or al- 
legorically, plunged the human race into unmeasured depths of woe. 
A child is born bhnd, or deaf and dumb, or shallow-pated, or with 
faculties more askew than limbs and features can be : unspeakable 
misery results; but it comes in the course of Providence, and the 
victim must submit and endure, trusting to the remunerations of 
eternity. 

" For God hath marked each anguished day, 
And numbered every secret tear; 
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay 
For all his children sufiTer here." 

The second source of misery is, like the second source of happi- 
ness, self-derived. It is the result of voluntary ignorance or 
crime ; though in regard to misery, as in regard to happiness, 
vastly the larger portion results from an admixture of the two 
causes, — the providential and the personal. Now, both for such 
results of happiness and misery as spring from our own character 
and conduct, we must take care of our own character and conduct. 
By so doing, we can obtain a maximum of the one, and avoid all 
but a minimum of the other. For such results as are exclusively 
of divine origin, we must learn to obey Grod's laws ; for a perfect 
knowledge and a perfect obedience of God's laws would introduce 
all possible happiness into the world, and ehminate all possible 
misery from it. 

And, for this purpose, it is among our highest privileges to know 
that God operates by uniform rules. No matter if theologians and 
metaphysicians do divide God's providential dealings with men into 
the natural and the supernatural : each must fall under the do- 
main of law. This is so, because it is impossible to conceive of a 
being, possessed of su.ch glorious attributes as we ascribe to the 
Almighty, who should act otherwise than uniformly; because he 
must always act out of his own unchangeableness. Hence fixed- 



558 LIFE OF HOBACE MANN. 

ness and certainty must pervade the supernatural not less than the 
natural domain. This fixedness and uniformity of operation are all 
that is meant by laio. Hence a knowledge of his laws is attain- 
able by man; and if a knowledge of, then also a conformity 
to them. To an intelligent apprehension, the Deity seems moving 
onward from everlasting to everlasting, not with devious, zig-zag 
motions, but in one right line ; not with mutability and fluctuation 
of purpose, but upon one vast plan, so perfect in the beginning, 
that it needs no revision, addition, or expurgation. 

To those who regard either the natural or the supernatural as 
not regulated by law, the Deity must seem adroit only, and not wise ; 
as rescuing his own system from ruin by expedients and make- 
shifts, such as a bungling craftsman resorts to to operate a bungUng 
machine. 

But why any evil or misery in the world at all ? Why not uni- 
versal impassibility to pain? Why not man necessitated to be 
happy ? — eveiy nerve of his sensitive nature pervaded by delight, 
as every corpuscle of his body is by gravitation. Why not his 
soul a compound of spiritual joys as his body is of chemical ingre- 
dients? Nay, why not happiness, passive and spontaneous, con- 
genital, anti-natal, eternal, without eflfort or wish for good, or 
resistance of evil, on our part, and man made virtuous and saintly 
in this life, and carried into immortality and transcendent bliss in 
another, as a dead-head, and all the saints only so many spiritual 
lazzai'oni ? 

Had not Grod begun at zero in creating the race, where should 
he have begun ? Should he not have bestowed language on chil- 
dren at birth, so that they might have told their mothers the seat 
of their pains, and thus have taken only one medicine, instead of 
all in the pharmacopceia ? Should not children have had enough 
knowledge of metals to abstain from eating arsenic for its sweet- 
ness ? Should they not have possessed enough knowledge to keep 
out of fire and water, and to count a hundred, and thus have fallen 
outside of Blackstone's definition of a fool ? 

But suppose all men to be bom at a certain advanced point of 
development, at a certain height in the scale above zero, would they 
not then be encompassed with a new circle of inconveniences and 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 559 

privations, quite as serious and annoying, and quite as earnestly 
demanding the manus emendatrix, the " amending hand," as 
Sir Isaac Newton called it ? And so, at whatever degree along the 
ascending scale man might be launched into being, he would, at 
that point, feel an apparent necessity of having been started at a 
higher point, until nothing could satisfy his demands but to have 
been created with the infinite perfections of a God. Surely this is 
as strong as the mathematicians' reductio ad ahsurdum. The only 
uncomplaining point to begin at is to begin so low, that there is no 
abiKty to complain. Hence man is created at the point of blank 
ignorance, that he may have the fehcity and the glory of ascending 
the whole way. Had he been set up any number of steps in the 
stairway of ascension, so much as he rose to higher elevations would 
have been lost from the perceptions of contrast and the emotions 
of subhmity. A mountain can never appear so grand to one born 
on its top as to one who was cradled in the vale, but has climbed 
to its summit. 

Here, then, we see how evil comes upon our race. We are 
created with numerous appetences ; all like so many eyes to desire, 
and like so many hands to seize, their related objects in the exter- 
nal world. The external world superabounds with objects fitted to 
gratify and inflame these internal appetences. And now these 
beings, fervid and aflame with these desires, are turned loose among 
these objects, without any knowledge of what kind, in what quan- 
tity, at what time, they are to be taken and enjoyed, but with 
free agency to take what, when, and as much as they j)lease. Bring 
these four elements into juxtaposition, — the thousand objects 
around, the inward desire for them, the free will to take them, and 
complete ignorance of consequences, — and how is it possible to avoid 
mistakes, injuries, errors, crimes ? With only one radius in which 
to go right, with the whole circumference of three hundred and 
sixty degrees in which to go wrong, and without innate knowledge 
of what is right and what wrong, — for a being so circumstanced 
never to err is just as impossible as for an infinite number of dice 
to be thrown an infinite number of times, and always to come up 
sixes. Take any one man out of the thousand millions of men 
now on the earth, and his appetite for food and drink is not 



560 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

adapted merely to one aliquot thousand-millionth part of all the 
viands and fruits and beverages upon the earth : it is adapted to all 
edibles and drinkables alike ; and without knowledge, and some- 
thing more than knowledge, he will seize them where he can find 
them. 

Consider all the property of the world — gold, gems, palaces, 
realities, personalties — as aggregated in one mass. Our natural love 
of this property is not confined to one quotient, using all mankind 
as a divisor; but it is adapted to the whole dividend, and without 
knowledge, and something more than knowledge, will demand it. 
" Male and female created He them." One man to one woman, one 
woman to one man, is the law. But each of one sex to all of the 
other is the adaptation ; and without knowledge, and something 
more than knowledge, chemistry has no affinities, mathematics have 
no demonstrations, more certain than that polygamy, Mormonism, 
Freeloveism, with all theu' kindred abominations, will be the result. 
Among all the young sparrows ever hatched, shall " never one of 
them fall to the ground without your Father." And, because one 
does fall, shall we say Grod's system is imperfect ? Does not the 
Preacher say, ' ' Shall those who remove stones not be hurt there- 
with, and they who cleave wood not be endangered thereby?" 
Who could foreknow that nettles would sting, until some person 
made a very sudden and perhaps improperly worded report of the 
fact ? Shall all mankind use edge-tools, and no man's fingers ever 
be cut ? How is an ignorant colony to avoid a malarious district 
until the fever shall have scorched and the ague shall have shaken 
enough witnesses to swear that region in open court to be the puta- 
tive father of quotidian, tertian, or quartan ? Why shall the conve- 
nience of lead service-pipes be abandoned, until the poisoned water 
shall have been caught, flagrante delicto, scattering colics and para- 
lyses ? After seeing the hardening efiect of fire on clay, how can a 
man teU, without experience, that it will not produce the same ef- 
fect on wax '? That is, in physical matters, how shall an agent, free 
to do what he will, and ignorant of what he ought, escape error, and 
consequent damage ? With an impelling force behind and no guid- 
ing light before, and with one only goal to be reached, how shall 
the engineer avoid fatal deviations right or left, or a no less fatal 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 561 

crash against obstacles in his path ? How should the first builder 
of houses, as a defence against cold and storm, foresee disease 
through loss of ventilation ? 

In matters of pure intellect, how could the first generations un- 
derstand all astronomy by looking into the heavens, or all geogra- 
phy and geology by seeing the surface of the earth ? Why should 
they not accredit the evidence of their own senses in regard to the 
diameter of the sun and moon, and therefore believe that a man 
could carry one of them under one arm, and the other under the 
other arm to balance it ? Why not explain eclipses of sun and moon 
by saying that a great dragon had swallowed them ? Why not beheve 
in all the chimeras and absurdities of astrology ? Why not beheve 
that the whole framework of the heavens rotates daily about the 
earth, as it seems to do ? K a man cannot see around the curvature 
or rotundity of the globe, nor penetrate downward through its nu- 
merous strata, why not believe it to be flat and thin, and to have 
four corners, and to have been made, with all its appendages, in 
six secular days ? And, if the muscles of man grow weary by labor, 
why not suppose that the Deity grew weary also, and ordained a 
sabbath for bodily rest? And when the passions flash their intense 
light of love or hate, of admiration or of disgust, upon the objects 
around us, can reason be always achromatic, and blend the whole 
emotional prism of rays into that white light through which alone 
the divine complexion and features of truth can be truly seen ? 

Still less in divine affairs could it be expected that a new-bom 
being, occupying but a point in space, should fathom the depths of 
immensity ; or, occupying but a point in time, should comprehend 
the eternities before and after. And when this frail child of an 
• hour hears the thunder's roar, and sees the heavens ablaze, and feels 
the earth shake, and the forests bend, and oceans toss, and he is 
unable to form a conception of a spiritual God, why should he not 
fall down and worship the first thing which his own ignorance 
makes mysterious ? 

Oh beautiful idolatry, when it springs from a devout and rever- 
ent soul as yet unilluminated by knowledge ! for, when the true 
Grod shall be revealed to such souls, they will cover the earth with 
the beauty of holiness, and fill the heavens with the fragrance of 
36 



562 LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 

worship. Polytheism grew up because men had not minds large 
enough to conceive of one God capable of all these terrestrial and 
celestial marvels, and therefore they had to divide his attributes 
among thousands, even millions, of deities. 

And, with all the numerous appetites and propensities innate in 
every man, how shall he maintain an equilibrium of exercise and of 
indulgence between them, and how a subordination of the lower to 
the higher, until the errors and miseries of the wrong paths, rising 
up before him like fire, shall have turned him back again and again 
to seek the right one ? How should a man know, until some one 
shall have tried the experiment, that fire will burn, or water drown, 
or that alcohol will intoxicate, and opium narcotize, or that the only 
difference between a filthy tobacco-user and a vile green tobacco- 
worm is, that, while the worm never comes up towards the man, the 
man constantly goes down towards the worm ? How, before trial 
or experiment, could it be known that dyspepsia is a non-conductor 
of knowledge, and that next to the calamity of being non compos 
in the brain is that of being non pos in the stomach ? How, before 
observation, could it be known that avarice, among the worldly 
passions, is the most destructive to every sentiment of honor and 
nobleness in the heart of man, and that bigotry, beyond all other 
spiritual crimes, destroys most thoroughly all mercy and godliness 
in the soul ; that a man may be a thief, and yet, according to the 
proverb, have some vestige of honor ; that he may be a robber, and 
not despoiled of all generosity ; that he may be a libertine, and yet 
have some fihal or social affections ; that an epicure can be gener- 
ous after dinner, and a conqueror have a circle of favorites? 
And again : we know that the heathen pagans and savages open their 
heaven to the good man, come whencesoever he will ; but a miser 
would keep the Omnipotent at work through all eternity creating 
wealth for himself, and the bigot would harry him with prayers to 
invent new tortures for heretics, and both remain surly with disap- 
pointment. 

This combination then, I say, of inward appetites reaching out- 
ward, of innumerable outward objects adapted to the inward appe- 
tites, with free will and with ignorance of consequences before trial, 
necessitates mistakes which are physical evil, necessitates errors 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 563 

which are intellectual evil, and necessitates these violations of God's 
law which are moral evil. This theory vindicates the providence 
of God in the creation and government of man for the existence of 
what we call evil, by showing that, with beings at once finite and 
free, it was inevitable. 

But, if evil is inevitable, how is man accountable for it ? If 
moral evil must he, is it not absurd to call men wicked ? Nay, is 
it not monstrous forcibly to set a man down in a certain place, or 
to put him in a given state of mind, and then pronounce him sinful 
for being there ? 

This is our solution of that Sphinx riddle : Though evil he inev- 
itable, it is remediable also ; it is removable, expugnahle. Nor 
does it at all follow, because evil necessarily now is, that it must 
necessarily always be ; nor because it must continue for a given 
period, longer or shorter, that it must continue forever. Most of 
the evils of mortals are terminable because they are exterminable. 
A farmer can rotate his crops : he can root out brier and thorn, 
and cultivate wheat. Legislatures make laws to prevent the recur- 
rence of evils, to bar them out, to abolish them. Satirists lash the 
evil-doer with their terrific thong, and force him to desist from 
shame when he will not from principle. Oppressed nations invoke 
God, and dethrone the oppressor. Pioneers hunt out wild beasts. 

Nor is it with great evils only, such as threaten life or limb, 
wealth or good name, that men combat. They take cognizance of 
the smallest annoyances, and remove or remedy them. They 
assuage hunger and thirst : in heat they seek the shade ; in cold, the 
fire. Every man seeks to take a mote out of his eye, or to banish 
a fly from his nose ; and, if his soul were large enough, he could 
just as well remove or abolish the evils of war, intemperance, big- 
otry, oppression, as to drive a snake from his path. 

This, then, is the conclusion of the matter : Men are not respon- 
sible for the evils they have not caused, and cannot cure ; hut 
they are responsible for the evils they consciously cause, or have 
power to cure. I am no more responsible for what Cotton Mather 
and his coadjutors did at the time of the Salem witchcraft, or 
for what Pharaoh did at the time of the Israelitish exodus, or for 
what my very much respected but unfortunate great grandparents, 



564 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Adam and Eve, did in the Garden of Eden at the time of the inter- 
view with a distinguished stranger in disguise, — I am no more 
responsible for any of these things than I am for the law of mathe- 
matics, by which, if uner[uals be added to equals, the results will be 
unequal, or by which, if the dividend is not a multiple of the 
divisor, you must have a fraction in the quotient. 

But our power to diminish evils, to extirpate evils, one afler 
another, creates the ohligation to diminish and to extirpate. This 
duty is oftentimes coincident with selfishness or self-love ; that is, 
it is both our duty and our desire to gratify some natural appetite 
or propensity. But sometimes our duty conflicts with the appetites 
or propensities of the lower nature. In either case, the duty is no 
less sovereign. In either case, obedience is indispensable to our 
permanent well-being. In all cases, God commands the perform- 
ance of duty at all hazards and all sacrifices. As, if matter is to 
exist, there must be extension and solidity ; so, if rational happiness 
is to exist, there must be a knowledge of God's laws, and an obedi- 
ence to them. Whenever one perceives a law in Nature or in 
Providence, it is as though the heavens opened, and a voice from 
the Most High came audibly down, calling us by name, and saying, 
"Do! " or "-Forbear .' " Not the children of Israel only, but every 
man, stands at the foot of Sinai, and must hear the commandments 
of the Lord ; not ten only, but ten thousand ; not Decalogue only, 
but Myrialogue; and must obey them, or die. For God's law is 
omnipotent as well as eternal, and we are co-eternal subjects of it. 
Nor is it to be supposed that he has one law of cause and effect for 
this world, and another law of cause and efiect for the next world, 
but that there is no law of cause and effect between the two worlds. 
Better and far nearer the truth would it be to say that this world 
is cause, and the next world effect. Shall the acts of a man — 
great virtues or great crimes — live forever upon earth in their 
good or evil consequences, but shall the actor, the man himself, 
perish ? Shall a grain of wheat buried in the integuments of an 
Egyptian mummy two thousand years ago, if now exhumed and 
planted, germinate, and connect the reign of Sesostris with the 
nineteenth centuiy, but shall the soul of him whose body was buried 
with that kernel of wheat pass into nonentity ? Shall a diamond 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 565 

adorning tte sliroud of some ancient king of Persia be restored to 
the light in our day, and again flash and blaze in the sunbeams, but 
shall the soul of the king himself live no more forever ? God's laws 
abide forever, and we abide forever under them ; and hence it is our 
highest conceivable interest as well as duty to conform, to inoscu- 
late our lives, our characters, ourselves, to them. In many things, 
the average of hixman knowledge shows this to be true already : 
additional enlightenment will demonstrate its truth in all things. 
A man inherits houses or lands. If his estate needs rounding out 
at any point, he adds to it, and symmetrizes its boundaries ; and, if 
disproportioned in its kinds of production, he turns forest into til- 
lage, or tillage into forest : if his house offends taste, or frustrates 
convenience, he modernizes it into beauty and fitness. So if a man, 
on waking up to conscious comparisons, finds himself abnormal, 
or distorted from the common type, — afflicted, for instance, with 
strabismics, or non-coincidence of the optic axes, — he applies to the 
surgeon, has the contracted muscle cut, and he no longer squints : 
so, if club-footed, or suffering under any other pedal malformation, 
he goes to an orthopedist, who, by the wonders of his art, reshapes 
the foot into simulation to the common pattern. If we have an 
unsightly or distorted feature, does not the smallest modicum of 
common sense teach us to cure or at least to palliate it ? If 
wounded or diseased in body, do we not seek to be healed or cured, 
and submit to privation and pain to be made whole ? See one of 
America's noblest and brightest sons, for an injury to the brain, 
which mad brutality in the council-halls of the nation had sacrile- 
giously inflicted on him, — see him seeking restoration in foreign 
lands, and going to the terrific moxa, the fire-cure, as to his daily 
meals ; and why ? Because he hoped, from these fire-thrills through 
all his nerves, for a rehabitation of the brain, and then for that 
other and hallowed fire in the cause of freedom and humanity such 
as touched Isaiah's lips. And if all this is done and borne for 
intellectual recuperation, nay, for the body that perishes, what 
ought not the scholar, — he who is indoctrinated into the knowledge 
of cause and effect, into the wondrous and saving knowledge of 
God's laws, — - that knowledge which fuses the two worlds into one. 



566 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

and makes death only an event in life, — what ought not he to do 
or dare for the exaltation and grandeur of the soul ? 

And this brings me to the second stage of my inquiry : How 
shall we obtain happiness, how avoid misery ? 

I answer, in the briefest and most comprehensive formula, By 
knowing and obeying the law of God ; for, in regard to all the 
higher forms of happiness, his plan seems to be to make men earn 
theLr own ; he furnishing them with an outfit of capital and imple- 
ments, or, as a business-man would express it, stock and tools. 

The babe recognizes God's laws. Before it has any conception 
of divine attributes or a Divine Being, before it can articulate the 
Holy Name, it recognizes one of the most central of all laws, — that 
by which, under like circumstances, like causes will produce like 
efiects. One well-executed burning of its fingers in a taper's blaze 
is sufficient : it needs no second lesson in that liturgy forever. 
Let a morsel of delicious food stimulate the papilla) of its tongue, 
and old age cannot obliterate its memory. So, but contrariwise, of 
the caustic or bitter. How soon the infant learns to call for water 
when it is thnsty, or to turn to the fire when it is cold ! The boy 
learns the law of his sports. Sh Isaac Newton did not understand 
the ■ law of resistance better than the slinger. A ninny farmer 
knows that, though he should sow the sea with acorns, and harrow 
them in with the north wind, he could not raise a forest of oaks 
upon its surface. A man may own all the coal-fields of Pennsyl- 
vania, or all the wood of the Hartz Mountains; but, without oxygen, 
he will freeze in the midst of them all. If a man will turn his bars 
of railroad hon into natural magnets, his road must run north and 
south. It may lie east and west to all eternity without their polari- 
zation. To create a visual image, the light must come to a focus 
on the retina of the eye, and not on the tympanum of the ear. 
Shadows are not projected towards the illuminating body, nor does 
an echo precede the sound that awakes it. 

Not less true is it, that if a man will enjoy health, strength, and 
longevity, he must know and observe the hygienic conditions of 
diet, air, exercise, and cleanliness. A sound brain cannot be elab- 
orated from a hypochondriac or valetudinarian body, nor systems 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 567 

of sound philosopliy be constructed in an unsound brain. Good 
digestion is part and parcel of a good man ; thougla it does not fol- 
low from this that pigs are Christians. Rum-blasted or tobacco- 
blasted nerves become non-conductors of volition ; and a porous and 
spongy brain can no more generate mental fire than a feather can 
beget lightning. Weak parents can no more be blessed with strong 
children than wrens can hatch eagles ; and it is as impossible for a 
child to detach himself from the qualities of his ancestry, as impos- 
sible wholly to break the entail of hereditary qualities, as it would 
be in a court of law to prove, at the time of his birth, the alibi of 
himself or his mother. Ezekiel notwithstanding, personal qualities 
are descendible ; and, if the fathers will eat sour grapes, the 
children's teeth will be set on edge. It has been objected to Swe- 
denborg, that he once introduced the Divine Being on an unworthy 
occasion. He says, that, when once dining in his chamber, the 
Adorable Majesty appeared before him, and said, " Swedenborg, do 
not eat so much. " Was this an unworthy occasion? — a dignus 
non vindice nodus ? I deny the justness of the criticism. It is 
one of the wisest revelations which that coffee-inspired prophet ever 
had. If a company of one hundred families would set themselves 
to-day profoundly and devotedly to the work of esemplifying dod's 
physiological laws, they would, in five generations of continued 
fidelity to them, govern the world. 

These conditions of prosperity, of achieving good and avoiding 
evil, pervade the intellectual and moral world. A man must 
know his faculties ; he must know the subordination of the lower 
to the higher, and his practice must accord with his knowledge. 

There are two grand laws respecting mind-growth, more im- 
portant than the laws of Kepler. The first is the law of symmetry. 
The faculties should be developed in proportion. Their circumfer- 
ence should be round, not polygonal ; they should be balanced, not 
tilted. Every faculty is firmer set when it receives support from 
all the others. Every faculty acts with indefinitely more vigor 
when the other faculties sympathize and co-operate. A man who 
has one arm spliced to the other, giving him the length of both in 
one, while the armless fingers are attached to the scapula ; a man 
who is Daniel Lambert on one side, weighing seven hundred 



568 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

pounds, and Calvin Edson, weighing only forty pounds, on the 
other, — is not more deformed than a man who is all intellect and no 
sentiment, or all sentiment and no intellect. Heretofore the king- 
dom of knowledge may have been enlarged by a distortion of the 
faculties, — by concentrating a sufficient energy upon one power 
and in one direction to achieve a discovery which could not have 
been achieved had that energy been equally distributed among all. 
But hereafter an entire realm of new discoveries will be opened 
and the errors of foiTaer discoverers rectified by that brighter illumi- 
nation, when the rays of all the faculties shall converge to a focus 
upon the object of inquiry, — as in that remai'kable case which 
occurred in Boston as but yesterday, where the laws of music and 
of electricity were invoked to solve an acoustic problem in the 
heart's beatings which had baiSed all the science of Europe. 

It is this relative disproportion of the faculties which has given 
rise to so many of the errors and even the crimes of the race, indi- 
vidual and national. If a body of seventy-two city brokers were 
now appointed to publish a septuagint edition of the New Testar 
ment, they would leave out the four Gospels, and insert in their 
stead the last best edition of the most approved interest tables. 
It is this accumulation of all excellence around one egotistic idea 
which makes an Englishman believe that Divine Providence always 
operates in subserviency to the British Constitution. It is this 
same exaggeration of a national sentiment which leads the French 
nation to look forward to a judgment-day, when men will be sepa- 
rated to the right hand and to the left, not because they have or 
have not given food or drink or clothes to the needy, not because 
they have visited or failed to visit the sick or the imprisoned, but 
according as they have been or have not been soldiers in the Grand 
Army. The descendant of the Puritan is disposed to believe in the 
doctrine of vicarious atonement, because this getting every thing 
and giving nothing is such a sharp bargain, — very much the same 
plan on which the Puritan ancestor treated the Indians. So the 
national foible or infirmity of our people — its over-grown vanity 
and pride — stands on a parallel with the haughtiness of the Span- 
iard, the vainglory of the Frenchman, and the egotism of the En- 
glishman. 



LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 569 

The first grand law of tte faculties, as a whole, then, is the law 
of symmetry. An obedience to this law will yield immense happi- 
ness, and avoid immense misery. 

The next law is as important as the first. It is that all our fac- 
ulties grow in power and in skill by use, and that they dwarf in 
both by non-use. By growth, I mean that they pass out of one 
state into another, as a grain of corn grows or passes from the em- 
bryo germ to the plumule, from the plumule to the stalk, to the 
flowering tassel, to the bountiful ear. 

What was Benjamin Franklin at birth ? Would he have sold for 
any thing in any Christian market ? Could he have been forced upon 
a debtor as a legal tender, even for the smallest charge in the debt ? 
Would any artist have purchased him for his studio, or any philoso- 
pher for his cabinet of natural history? No chemist could have 
turned him to any account in his retorts. He was destined for far 
other retorts than theirs. But he grew. From being a lump of 
flesh weighing so many pounds avou'dupois, he took on other quali- 
ties and attributes, each transcendent, culminating over the preced- 
ing. By and by he became- Benjamin FrankHn plus the English 
alphabet, then Benjamin Franklin plus the multiplication-table. By 
industrious days and laborious nights, by observation and reflection, 
by noble abstinence from foul excesses, by divine energy of will in 
temperance, in diligence, in perseverance (better than the theologic 
perseverance of the saints, because it was his own), he gathered 
knowledge, accumulated stores of experience, grew wise on obser- 
vation and lucubration, until soon he became that Benjamin Frank- 
lin whose name the lightning blazons from one part of the heavens 
unto the other, and to whom every summer cloud in all the zones 
and to the end of time shall thunder applause. See the offshoots of 
this growing man at this point of his development ! Morse, House, 
Field, are his own brain-begotten children. The lightning is nimbly 
at work to-day in the shops of ten thousand artificers. It strikes 
alarm-bells, and warns sleeping cities that conflagration and a fiery 
death are at their doors. It measures longitudes as no geometer or 
astronomer could ever measure them ; and before another twelve- 
month shall have passed, by a new application of that elemental 
force which ran along Franklin's kite-string, a cable shall unite the 



570 LIFE OF HOEACE MANN. 

Eastern and Western Hemispheres, along whose electric threads 
shall fly to and fro such " winged words" as Homer never dreamed 
of. Then he grew into that Benjamin Franklin who signed the 
Declaration of American Independence ; then into that Benjamin 
Franklin who signed the treaty of peace that acknowledged the 
independence and sovereignty of these United States ; an act ex- 
torted from a sovereign, which made him more than sovereign, — 
the pater imtri(B of a country peopled with sovereigns. Then he 
became Benjamin Franklin "plus the Constitution of the United 
States. 

What growth was here ! what excelsior strivings and triumphs 
from day to day ! what ascension from glory to glory ! not to cease 
even with death ; for in all Christendom there is not now, nor ever 
hereafter will be, a child born of woman, who has not and will not 
have more of well-being and less of ill-being on earth because 
Benjamin Frankhn lived ; that is, because of his industry, fidelity, 
and temperance when he was a boy ; because of his integrity, wis- 
dom, and philanthropy when a man. 

Now, each class and profession of men has a different stand-point 
from which it surveys the world, and to which, in its peculiar posi- 
tion, the world presents its immense variety of aspects. To a hack- 
driver, the living freiglit which a steamboat or raih'oad-train pours 
into a city are worth twenty-five or fifty cents apiece. The barber 
feels ties of brotherhood, and the gates of his soul open with wel- 
come, towards that part of the human race that shaves. The manu- 
facturer of playing-cards thinks it terrible Puritanism to condemn 
what Burns calls the "Devil's pictured bulks;" and the printer of 
Bibles is a most zealous member of the Bible Society. When a 
shoemaker is requested to fit a tiny pair of shoes to an infant's feet, 
he sees a row of prospective and gradually enlarging shoes stretch- 
ing out into futurity. So the tailor sees a lengthening vista of 
coats, and the hatter of hats, for all their customers. All these are 
seen as clearly as jEneas saw Marcellus far away in the coming 
generations. 

So it is easy to take an ancestor who lived a thousand years ago, 
and see his lineal descendants diverging and radiating from him, 
children and grandchildren, — each line or lineage reaching in solid 



LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 571 

rank and file down to the present time ; one branch honorable, 
another proud, another base. These are realities. 

But in view of this law of growth, and of the rapidity of its incre- 
ments, no less real to me is the spectacle presented by every young 
man, especially by eveiy young man who receives the nutriment 
and invigoration of a college-life. Radiating from every such young 
man as from a central point, I seem to see long-extended lines of 
the forms of men, — such forms as he may enter and occupy, and 
so become the men they represent. It is as though these lines shot 
out from him as from a centre to a circumference ; only there is no 
circumference, for the lines lengthen outward into endless perspec- 
tive. Stand up, young man, and let us behold the forms of men, 
noble or ignoble, lofty or mean, saintly or satanic, which beleaguer 
you, and into which your soul enters as you pass on in your life, 
from glory to glory, or from shame to shame ! Here, shooting out 
in one direction, I see an ascending series, an upward gradation of 
noble forms, figures of lofty stature and mien. Health and strength 
are in all their limbs ; fire, ardor, aspiration, gleam from every eye ; 
the light of vhtue shines from every face ; each life is pure. What 
a throne for majesty is every brow ! Beneficence is in every hand. 
See how each individual in that long-extended rank excels the last, 
as it rises and towers, and is lost at last to our view, but lost only 
where earth meets heaven ! 

But what do I see on the other side ? Another line, compact 
like the former, shooting outward from the same centre, but stamped 
and branded with all those types of infamy that can be developed 
from the appetites, — gluttony, intemperance, sensuality, debauch- 
ery, agony and ignominy unspeakable. God ! I rejoice that 
I can see no farther into the perdition beyond. These, these, 
young man, are the forms which you may grow into and become. 
Choose to-day whether you will pass through this succession to 
honor and bliss, or this to shame and despair. 

This young man proposes to be a lawyer. Shooting outwards 
from him on either hand are compact files of those who disgrace or 
those' who honor the noble profession of the law. This line begins 
with a pettifogger, a chicaner, a picaroon, — one whose study and 
life it is to throw the cloak of truth over the body of a lie, like that 



572 LIFE OP HORACE MANN. 

lawyer of wHom a malefactor said, "I have counted the claances, 
and concluded to commit the crime, for I know lie can get me off; " 
and it ends in an Old-Bailey or Five-Points solicitor, sold to the 
semce of Satan, content to take half his pay in money, and the rest 
in pleasure of wickedness, — like the man who was a great lover of 
swine's flesh, who said he wished he were a Jew, that he might 
have the pleasure of eating pork and committing a sin at the same 
time. Another radiating file begins with examples of honor, equity, 
truth-loving, and ends in a chief justice such as Holt or Marshall 
or Shaw. 

Another means to be a public man. His first transformation 
may be into a demagogue, half-sycophant, half-libeller, a pimp and 
pander of power, a peculator, an embezzler, a robber of mails or 
mints, a polyglot liar ; or he may pass into those types whose sys- 
tems of political economy have humanity for their end, and wealth 
for their means only ; who know no castes or classes or nobility, 
excepting those who bear God's patent of intelligence and virtue. 

This young man looks to the sacred desk. Next to him, on one 
side, stands the chameleon preacher, the color of whatever he 
touches. His soul is a religious earner a-ohscur a, reflecting back 
only the souls of those who pay his salary. He cannot preach 
against the crimes of to-day, — the crimes that flout heaven, the 
crimes that crush life out of the human heart. He can only preach 
against the " exceeding sinfulness of sin," — now and then hurling 
a terrific bolt at Jeroboam or Judas. They are personages not very 
likely to disturb the sacred quiet of his parish. But what a glo- 
rious column of the forais of men stands on the other side ! — true 
disciples of Jesus Christ, constituted of piety, philanthropy, and 
wisdom, — men who, for truth's sake, can bear revilings and a crown 
of thorns, can look without shrinking upon the cross, nay, can die 
upon the cross if need be. But, oh ! when the sanctifying hour of 
death has passed, then the revilings become world-wide homages; 
the crown of thorns, a crown of amaranth, blossoming forever in the 
air of heaven : even the accursed cross is made sacred in the eyes 
of men. 

Thus it ever is when men make sacrifices in the cause of duty. 
First comes the temptation; which if resisted, the transfiguration 



LIFE OF HORACE MANN. 573 

follows. The stern fulfilment of duty enrages tlae wicked, and they 
execute crucifixion ; and then comes the ever-glorious ascension : 
and even the memory of the Joseph of Arimathea who cared for the 
dead body of the martyr is gratefully and forever embalmed in the 
hearts of men. 

Crowdmg thick around you, my young friends who go forth 
from here to-day, I see these various classes and characters of men 
whom I have attempted to portray. Select which you please. 
Transmigrate through the forms of one class into ever-increasing 
nobleness and dignity, ascending to all temporal honor and renown, 
to end in the glories of immortality; or plunge thi-ough the other, 
from degradation to degradation, to a perdition that is bottomless. 

I need not carry out the parallel with regard to the young ladies 
who are before me, and who are candidates for graduation to-day. 
For them, if they will have the courage to lift themselves out of the 
frivolities of a fashionable and a selfish life, each one, in her own 
sphere and in her own way, may become another Isabella, securing 
an outfit for another Columbus for the discovery of another hemi- 
sphere wherewith to bless mankind, — more honorable to the 
queenly helper than to the bold navigator. . . . 

The last words I have to say to you, my young friends, are 
these : — 

You are in the kingdom of a Divine Majesty who governs his 
realms according to law. By his laws, it is no more certain that fire 
will consume, or that water will drown, than that sin will damn. 
Nor is it more sure that flame will mount, or the magnetic needle 
point to the pole, than it is that a righteous man will ascend along 
a path of honor to glory and beatitude. These laws of Grod per- 
vade all things, and they operate with omnipotent force. Our 
free agency consists merely in the choice we make to put ourselves 
under the action of one or another of these laws. Then the law 
seizes us, and sweeps us upward or downward with resistless power. 
If you stand on the great table-land of North America, you can 
launch your boat on the head waters of the Columbia, or the 
Mackenzie, or the St. Lawrence, or the Mississippi ; but the boat, 
once launched, will be borne towards the selected one of the four 



574 LIFE OP HOEACE MANN. 

points of the compass, andyrom all the others. If you place your 
bark in the Gulf Stream, it will bear you northward, and not south- 
ward ; or though that stream is as large as three thousand Mississip- 
pis, yet you can steer your bark across it, and pass into the region of 
the variable or the trade winds beyond, to be borne by them. 

If you seek suicide from a precipice, you have only to lose your 
balance over its edge, and gravitation takes care of the rest. So 
you have only to set your head right by knowledge, and your heart 
right by obedience, and forces stronger than streams or winds or 
gravitation will bear you up to celestial blessedness, Elijah-like, by 
means as visible and palpable as though they were horses of fire 
and chariots of fire. 

Take heed to this, therefore, that the law of God is the supreme 
law. The judge may condemn an innocent man ; but posterity will 
condemn the judge. The United States are mighty ; but they are 
not almighty. How sad and how true what Kossuth said, that 
there had never yet been a Christian government on earth ! Before 
there can be a Christian government, there must be Christian men 
and women. Be you these men and women ! An unjust govern- 
ment is only a great bully ; and though it should wield the navy in 
one fist and the ai-my in the other, though it should array every 
gun in the armories of Springfield and Harper's Ferry into one bat- 
tery, and make you their target, the righteous soul is as secure 
from them as is the sun at its zenith height. 

While, to a certain extent, you are to live for yourselves in this 
life, to a greater extent you are to live for others. Great boons, 
such as can only be won by great labors, are to be secured ; great 
evils are to be vanquished. Nothing to-day prevents this earth 
from being a paradise but en-or and sin. These errors, these sins, 
you must assail. The disabilities of poverty ; the pains of disease ; 
the enervations and folly of fashionable life ; the brutishness of ap- 
petite, and the demonisms of passion ; the crowded vices of cities, 
thicker than their inhabitants ; the retinue of calamities that come 
through ignorance ; the physical and moral havoc of war ; the woes 
of intemperance; the wickedness of oppression, whether of the body 
or of the soul; the Godlessness and Christlessness of bigotry, — 



LIFE OF HOE ACE MANN. 575 

these are the hosts against which a war of extermination is to be 
waged, and yon are to be the warriors. Never shrink, never retreat, 
because of danger : go into the strife with your epaulettes on. 

At the terrible battle of Trafalgar, when Lord Nelson, on board 
the " Victory," the old flag-ship of Keppel and of Jervis, bore 
down upon the combined fleets of France and of Spain, he appeared 
upon the quarter-deck with his breast all blazing with gems and 
gold, the insignia of the " stars " and " orders " he had received. 
His officers, each a hero, besought him not thus to present himself 
a shining mark for the sharpshooters of the enemy, but to conceal 
or doff the tokens of his rank. " No," replied Nelson : "in honor 
I won them, and in honor I'll wear them! " He dashed at the 
French line, and grappled with the "Redoubtable" in the embrace 
of death. But, when the battle had raged for an hour, a musket-ball, 
shot from the mizzen-top of the enemy, struck his left epaulette, and, 
crashing down through muscle and bone and artery, lodged in his 
spine. He knew the blow to be fatal ; but as he lay writhing in 
mortal agony, as the smoke of battle at intervals cleared away, and 
the news was brought to him that one after another of the enemy's 
ships — the " Redoubtable," the " Bucentaur," the "Santa Anna," 
the " Neptune," the " Fougueux " — had struck their colors, his 
death-pangs were quelled, joy illumined his face, and for four hours 
the energy of his will sustained his vitality; and he did not yield 
to death until the fleets had yielded to him. 

So, in the infinitely nobler battle in which you are engaged 
against error and wrong, if ever repulsed or stricken down, may 
you always be solaced and cheered by the exulting cry of triumph 
over some abuse in Church or State, some vice or folly in society, 
some false opinion or cruelty or guilt which you have overcome ! 
And I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting 
words : Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for 
humanity. 



APPENDIX. 



A.. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOSTON COMMITTEE. 

A YEAR after Mr. Mann had been elected to Congress, and while he 
was absent at Washington, some friends of the cause of education in 
the Legislature of Massachusetts, who were not before particularly- 
acquainted with the pecuniary sacrifices which he had made for it, 
(among whom was the Hon. Charles W. Upham of Salem, the Chair- 
man of the Joint Committee on Education), became apprised of the 
extraordinary devotion of his means, as well as of himself, to the cause 
that had been intrusted to him ; and through their agency this com- 
mittee was instructed " to ascertain what sums, if any, were paid by 
the late Secretaiy of the Board of Education, out of his private means, 
for the erection of Normal schoolhouses, and for other purposes of a 
public nature, with power to send for persons and papers." 

In March following, the committee made their report, which con- 
sisted mainly of statements, made by various individuals, of such facts 
as they personally knew concerning the pecuniary contributions made 
by Mr. Mann out of his own private means to carry forward the 
37 577 



578 APPENDIX. 

public work with which he had been charged. From this report, and 
the statements it contains, we shall quote largely. Biographies are 
rarely swelled by any great accumulation of similar details. 

The committee first introduce a letter from Mr. Mann himself, dated 
Washington, Feb. 9, 1849, from which we make the following ex- 
tracts : — 

" The order empowers the committee to send for persons and 
papers. You are pleased to put your requisition upon me in the imper- 
ative mood ; though doubtless for no other reason than that of over- 
coming a repugnance I might be supposed to feel against speaking 
upon the subject. . . . 

" You must permit me to say, in the fii'st place, that, until the receipt 
of your letter, I was entirely ignorant that any such movement had 
been made, or was contemplated, by any one. I could never have 
brought myself to ask, nor even to ask a friend to ask, any remu- 
neration for the sacrifices made or the expenses incurred in promot- 
ing the objects of my office. However much it may prejudice the end 
you have in view, I must, nevertheless, say that those sacrifices and 
expenses were incurred without any expectation of re-imbursement. 
When I left a lucrative profession for the Seci'etaryship, I cheerfully 
surrendered all hopes of wealth or promotion; and, from the day 
when I accepted that office, I held myself personally responsible for 
the success of the enterprise ; and though it might cost me my means, 
my health, my life, or a hundred fives, if I had them, I held the tri- 
umph of the cause to be paramount to them all. 

" On entering upon the office, it is well known that numerous, and 
in some cases heavy expenses were connected with it, such as never 
had been contemplated either by the framers of the law or by my- 
self Not a cent has ever been allowed me for clerk-hire or office-rent. 
At first, no provision was made for postages or stationery. Since pro- 
vision was made for these latter items, I have never charged half their 
cost, lest the expenses of the office might excite opposition against it. 
Whatever books I needed, either in our own or other languages, I 
have been obliged to purchase and pay for myself For other expenses 
incurred in travelling over the State for the first five years, — occupy- 
ing about four months each year, — no allowance has ever been made 
me. 

" What I have paid for clerk-hire must, of course, be known to those 
who have received it ; and what I have spent for educational works 
and documents to be distributed over the State must be known to 
those who have furnished and who have received them. If there have 



APPENDIX. 579 

been still other expenses, perhaps they had better come under the rule 
of not letting the left hand know what the right hand doeth. . . . 

" In what I have alreadj^ said, although said at your request, I may 
be thought by some to be treading on delicate ground. This move- 
ment did not originate with me. I cannot present myself in the form 
of a petitioner, asking for a return of what was voluntarily given. I 
must take care of my honor. The State is the proper judge of its own. 
If the State chooses to consider any part of the sums I have paid as 
paid on its account, — as paid for property of which it now has the 
benefit, or now enjoys the actual use and possession, — it will be grate- 
fully received, both as a token of its approbation, and as the refunding 
of moneys I must otherwise lose- But, let what will come, no poverty, 
and no estimate of my services, however low, can ever make me repine 
that I have sought, with all the means and the talents at my com-j 
mand, to lay broader and deeper the foundations of the prosperity of 
our Commonwealth, and to elevate its social and moi'al character 
among its confederate States and in the eyes of the world. 

" With the most respectful regards for yourself and your colleagues 
on the committee, and with an earnest request, that, in whatever you 
may deem it right to do in relation to this movement, you will take 
care of my honor, whatever may become of my purse, 

" I remain, &c." 

The Hon. A. Hale, then a member of Congress, in whose place of 
residence — Bridgewater — one of the Normal schoolhouses had been 
erected, made, among other things, the following statement : — 

" The Board then advertised for proposals for the erection of the 
[Normal-school] buildings according to the plans and specifications 
which had been furnished by the Board. 

" The proposals being very much above the amount at the disposal 
of the Board for that object, alterations were made in the plans and 
specifications, reducing the expense of the buildings very considerably ; 
but still the Board could not find any person to erect the buildings for 
the sum in their hands, and it seemed that the enterprise must be 
abandoned. Under these circumstances, Mr. Mann came forward, and 
gave his private obligation to pay the excess of the cost of the build- 
ings over and above the amount at the disposal of the Board. With 
this Indemnity, the Board caused the buildings to be erected ; and, on a 
settlement of the bills. It was found that the excess amounted to about 
seven hundred and forty dollars, of which an individual of the town of 
Bridgewater paid a hundred dollars, and Mr. Mann the residue." 



580 APPENDIX. 

The following facts were detailed by the Hon. Josiah Quincy, jun., 
then Mayor of Boston : — 

" I cannot withhold my testimony as to the disinterested liberality 
with which Mr. Mann has endeavored to forward the great cause of 
public education. 

" I shall confine myself to pecuniary sacrifices on advances made by 
him of a comparatively large amount. 

" Five or six years ago, Mr. Mann applied to me for a loan, on his 
law-library, of some five or six hundred dollars, for the purpose of fur- 
nishing the lodging-house of the Normal School at Lexington. Know- 
ing his circumstances, I endeavored to dissuade him fi-om giving so 
much to the public, and refused, on that ground, to lend him the 
money. The result was, he sold his libraiy, and furnished the house ; 
losing, I have no doubt, in the result, the whole amount. 

" Shortly after this, the land and schoolhousc at West Newton 
were given to the public,* with the understanding that the citizens of 
that place and the friends of education would fit up the building in 
the most approved style. 

" Some months after the building was completed, I learned acciden- 
tally that the necessary funds had not been raised, and that Mr. Mann 
and Mr. Pierce had expended and paid a large amount of their own 
money (a thousand three hundred dollars) for the repairs. A meet- 
ing of friends of the cause was immediately called at my house, with- 
out the knowledge of either of the gentlemen, to provide means for its 
payment. . . . 

" Massachusetts owes the existence of two of her Normal-school 
buildings to the advances made by two gentlemen to complete the first. 

'• After the erection of the schools at Westfield and Bridgewater, 
Mr. Mann applied to me for a loan of two thousand dollars. On in- 
quiry, I found that the appropriations for these buildings fell short of 
the contract prices ; and, rather than run the risk of losing them, Mr. 
Mann had made himself personally liable for the difference. He in- 
sisted on borrowing the money, and giving security for it ; and forbade 
my applying to any individuals or to the State on the subject. As it 
was a business transaction, I have never mentioned it ; and should not 
have done it now, except at the order of the State. He gave as secu- 
rity almost, I believe, all his personal property, and still owes the 
debt." 



* This donation was made by Mr. Quincy himself ; though, from his letter, one 
would never surmise it. 



APPENDIX. 581 

Mr. George B. Emerson enumerated various items, varying from 
forty to six hundred and forty dollars at a time, of whose payment by 
Mr. Mann from time to time, for the promotion of the cause, he hap- 
pened to be personally cognizant ; and then adds : — 

" The expenses of printing the papers he has written in defence of 
the cause of the Massachusetts Board of Education fell principally 
upon him, and must have amounted to a very large sum. . . . 

" It has always seemed to me, that giving, as he did, his life to this 
work, and having made a very great personal sacrifice, in a pecuniary 
point, by accepting the office of Secretary to the Board of Education, 
be was less bound than any other individual to contribute towards 
these objects from his private purse. But he was in the habit of doing, 
at his own expense, what he saw was necessary for the cause, when- 
ever no one else came forward to do it." 

Messrs. Dutton & Wentworth, printers to the State, volunteered to 
send the chairman of the committee the following letter : — 

" Dear Sir, — Learning that a movement is about to be made in 
the Legislature to make some remuneration to the Hon. Horace Mann, 
late Secretary of the Board of Education, for personal and other ex- 
penses incurred during his term of office, we beg leave to volunteer in 
his benalf During the twelve years of his term of office, all the 
reports of the Board and its Secretary have been printed by us. In 
regard to the printing he has ordered, he has always had it done in the 
most economical manner ; and we wish to bear our testimony to the fact. 
Whenever he has wanted, for distribution, extra copies of his reports, 
he has ordered them printed on his private account, and paid for them 
himself: we are unable to state the exact amount he has paid us for 
these documents, but should say it must have been seventy-five or a 
hundred dollars. The documents he has purchased of us were his own 
reports, school-abstracts, lectures, &c., besides circulars he has issued 
for teachers' meetings, where addresses were to be delivered by him- 
self and others. The amount stated above, we are aware, is not large ; 
but the spirit of the transaction is more than the amount. He never 
would take a sheet or a copy, belonging to the State, at any time. If 
he wanted copies for distribution, he has ordered them, and paid for 
them out of his own purse. In the matter of postages, he has also not 
been less scrupulous and conscientious; having always paid the ex- 
pr.esses for letters and proof-sheets to and from himself when he was 
in the country while his reports were printing. In every thing in re- 
lation to the duties of his office, he has always been very exact ; scru- 



582 APPENDIX. 

pulous and uniform in the discharge of his duties, so far as the matter 
of printing is concerned. We believe the State owes Mr. Mann a 
great debt ; and, if the simple facts here stated will help his cause, we 
feel we are only doing an act of justice to him as an officer of the 
strictest integrity. 

" With sentiments of respect and esteem, 
" Your obedient servants, 

" DUTTON & WeNTWORTH, 

" State Printers." 

On this letter the Report remarks : — 

" The letter from Messrs. Dutton & Wentworth is quite remarka- 
ble, as proving the scrupulous sense of justice and honor that has 
marked Mr. Mann's discharge of his late office. To use an expression 
which bears the stamp of his own peculiar richness of illustration, he 
has been careful ' to shake the gold-dust from his garments Avhenever 
he has had occasion to go into the public mint.'"* 

William B. Fowle, Esq., bookseller, and publisher of the " Common- 
school Journal " dui'ing the last six years of the time that Mr. Mann 
was its editor, being called upon for information by the committee, at- 
tested as follows : — 

" It always appeared to me that IMr. Mann had set his heart upon 
the great work of resuscitating the school-system, at any sacrifice to 
himself of ease or property. I never knew what resources he had ; but 
I often wondered at the liberality, or what to me seemed the prodigal- 
ity, of his donations ; and yet the expenditure of his money must have 
been to him a trifle, compared with the outlay of strength which I 
often witnessed. I often warned him of his danger when I saw him 
suffering from an overworked brain : but he never desisted, though he 
admitted the danger ; for the work was to be done, and if neglected, 
though beyond human strength, the community, not knowing this, 
would consider him unfaithful. This was his greatest sacrifice in the 
cause of education ; but, as no pecuniary estimate can be set upon this, 
perhaps I should not have alluded to it. I have known him for weeks 

* While Mr. Mann was a candidate for the office of Governor of Massachusetts 
(as before mentioned), he was informed that an emissary of one of the political 
parties opposed to him had been at the State House for three days, overhauling' 
the accounts and official records made by him while Secretary of the Board of 
Education, in hopes to find or create some pretext for impeaching his conduct. 
"Let him get a microscope," said Mr. Mann, "and blind himself with looking. 
He will not only find no stain in my official conduct, but I hope the examination 
of it will make him an honester man." 



APPENDIX. 583 

to be unable to sleep. When Mr. Mann entered upon his duties, it 
was evident that his efforts would be very restricted if he did not con- 
trive to scatter the information he collected. Indeed, the law required 
that he should both collect and distribute ; but the State made no pro- 
vision for the distribution ! As the most popular and economical 
method of complying with the requirements of the law, Mr. Mann com- 
menced the ' Common-school Journal.' At the end of the fourth year, 
when I became the publisher, the receipts had fallen short of the ex- 
penditures. Since that time, viz. for six years, the loss has not fallen 
upon Mr. Mann ; but he has continued to edit the ' Journal,' because he 
considered it essential to the success of the great cause. 

" The volumes contain many valuable documents which it was im- 
portant to scatter widely over the State. It was ]Mr. Mann's custom 
to print extra numbers of these, and distribute them gratuitously to 
the schools. I recollect three or four cases in which he sent a copy 
to every district, of which there must have been three or four thou- 
sand. . . . 

" Probably each of these donations cost him seventy-five dollars. 
Many single volumes of the ' Journal,' and sometimes whole sets, were 
given away for the general good ; but of this I have no record, though 
I know the volumes amounted to hundreds. 

" The compilation of the volume of abstracts was a heavy task : but, 
besides making this, he actually paid for the making of the index; 
which, I know (for I made one of them), is no slight affair. . . . 

" Two other items have occurred to me ; and they should be men- 
tioned, as helping to illustrate the perfect forgetfulness of self which 
marked the official course of Mr. Mann. 

" Three or four years ago, when outline maps began to be used in 
schools, it became proper that the pupils of the Normal schools should 
be taught how to use them. As the Board of Education had no funds, 
jyii'. Mann paid for three sets, one for each school. The price is twen- 
ty-five dollars a set. 

" Before Mr. Mann went to Europe, I had frequent conversations 
with him on the subject of European schools ; and he regretted that he 
had not that personal knowledge which would enable him to compare 
them with our own, and to propose such improvements as would really 
advance our own. I think this was his only motive in going ; for he 
visited nothing but schools, and returned as soon as possible. The ex- 
penses of his visit must have exceeded his salary ten or fifteen hundred 
dollars ; and, on his return, I proposed to him to put his notes into the 
form of a book, and let me publish them, assuring him that the copy- 



584 APPENDIX. 

rigM would produce more than he had expended beyond his salary. 
His reply was, that he was a public officer, and went for the public, 
and the public were entitled to the information, free of any such tax. 
His remarks, therefore, were thrown into his Seventh Annual Report, 
and given to the State." 

After paying a merited tribute of respect to the Hon. Edmund 
Dwight for his Avell-known liberality in the same cause, the committee 
close their report with the following paragraph, and with a resolve for 
paying out of the treasury of the Commonwealth " the sum of two 
thousand dollars in favor of Horace Mann, late Secretary of the Board 
of Education : " — 

" The committee do not propose, as they feel confident that it would 
not be agreeable to Mr. Mann, to make out an exact account of what 
the State may owe him in dollars and cents. He does not desire, and 
would not be willing, to be fully re-imbursed ; but, before all money that 
the treasury of the Commonwealth contains, he prefers to cherish the 
happy and noble thought, that he has labored and suffered in her 
behalf He asks for nothing, and has had no voluntary agency in this 
movement. Kothing would be more repugnant to his well-known sen- 
sibilities than to have a claim urged upon the State for an exact settle- 
ment of his accounts with it upon mere business pi'inciples. What he 
has done, he meant, at the time, for a gift ; and the committee do not 
propose to deiDrive him of the title of a benefactor. They do not pro- 
pose to pay Jam off; but, under the circumstances, they are of opinion 
that the passage of the following resolve, although not amounting by 
half to what, upon a strict computation, is equitably due to him, would 
be more agreeable to his feelings than a more precise remuneration." 

From authentic information, we are able to say that this sum was but 
a very small part of what had been paid by Mr. Mann from his own 
pocket, in furtherance of the cause of education, while he was Secreta- 
ry of the Board ; but, inadequate as a remuneration though it was, it 
was in the highest degree honorable both to giver and receiver. Before 
any one complains of Massachusetts for not doing more, let him point 
to a single State in our Union, or to a single government in the world, 
which under such circumstances, and /o?- such a class of services, 
would have done as much. We believe the resolve was passed in both 
Houses without a dissenting vote. 



APPENDIX. 585 

B. 

"CODE OF HONOR," FALSELY SO CALLED. 

At a convention composed of delegates from colleges in the State 
of Ohio, assembled at Columbus, Dec. 29, 1856, the following 
resolutions, designed to promote the internal tranquillity, the literary 
progress, and the exemplary conduct, of students, -were unanimously 
adopted; and a committee, consisting of the Hon. Horace Mann, 
President of Antioch College, the E,ev. Jeremiah Hall, President of 
Denison University, and the Kev. Dr. Solomon Howard, President of 
Ohio University, were appointed to prepare an address to the faculties 
of colleges in the State of Ohio, setting forth more fully and argumen- 
tatively the subject-matter of the resolutions, and to cause the same to 
be printed and distributed : — 

Whereas a sentiment very generally prevails in colleges and 
schools, that students ought, as far as possible, to withhold all informa- 
tion, respecting the misconduct of then* fellow-students, from faculty 
and teachers ; 

A7id lohereas this sentiment is often embodied in what is called a 
code of honor, by whose unwritten, and therefore uncertain pro- 
visions, students are often tempted or constrained, under fear of ridi- 
cule or contempt or violence, to connive at the oifences of their fellow- 
students beforehand, or to screen them from punishment afterwards ; 

Andiohereas a bounty is thus offered for the commission of wrong, 
in the impunity which is secured to the wrong-doer : therefore 

Resolved, That a college or school is a community, which, as an 
essential condition of its prosperity, must, like any other community, be 
governed by wise and wholesome laws faithfully administered. 

And further resolved, That as he is a good citizen, and in the 
highest degree worthy of the gratitude of the community where he 
dwells, who, knowing that an offence is about to be committed, promptly 
interposes to prevent it ; and as he is a bad citizen, and worthy the 
condemnation of all good men, who, knowing that an off'ence has 
been committed, withholds testimony or suborns witnesses to shield the 
culprit from the consequences of his crime : so, in a college or in a 
school, he is a good student, and a true friend of all other students, who 
by any personal influence which he can exert, or by any information 
which he can impart, prevents the commission of offences that are medi- 
tated, or helps to redress the wrongs already committed ; and that he 
is a bad student, who, by withholding evidence, or by false and evasive 
testimony, protects offenders, and thereby encourages the repetition of 
offences ; and further, that as civil society cannot attain those ends 
of peace and prosperity for which it was constituted if it should suffer 
accomplices in crime or accessories, either before or after the fact, to 
remain or go at large among its members : so no college or school can 
ever reach the noble purposes of its institution should it permit con- 



586 APPENDIX. 

federates or accessories in vice or crime to remain enrolled among its 
members. 

Andichereas one great object of penal discipline is the reformation 
of the offender : therefore 

Resolced, That just in proportion as the students of any institution 
will co-operate with its government in maintaining order and good 
morals, just in the same proportion should the government of such insti- 
tution become more lenient and parental, substituting private expostu- 
lation for public censure, and healing counsel for wounding punish- 
ments. 

The committee appointed at the convention above named, to pre- 
pare an address to the faculties of the colleges above referred to, have 
attended to the duty assigned them, and submit the following 

REPORT. 

Unhappily, no person needs to be informed that a feeling of antago- 
nism towards teachers often exists among students. The hostile rela- 
tion of distrust and disobedience supplants the filial one of trust aijd 
obedience. Such a relation necessitates more or less of coercive disci- 
pline ; and discipline, unless when administered in the highest spirit of 
wisdom and love, alienates rather than attaches. Though it may 
subdue opposition, it fails to conciliate the affections. 

A moment's consideration must convince the most simple-minded 
that the idea of a natural hostility between teachers and pupils is not 
merely wrong, but ruinous. AVithout sympathy, Avithout mutual affec- 
tion, between instructors and instructed, many of the noblest purposes 
of education are wholly baffled and lost. No student can ever learn 
even the most abstract science from a teacher whom he dislikes as well 
as from one whom he loves. Affection is an element in which all the 
faculties of the mind as well as all the virtues of the heart flourish. 

Springing from this deplorable sentiment of a r.atural antagonism 
between teachers and students, an actual belligerent condition ensues 
between them. One party promulgates laws : the other disobeys them 
when it dares ; or, what is an evil only one degree less in magnitude 
than actual disobedience, it renders but a formal or compulsory compli- 
ance, — there being, in strictness, no obedience but that of the heart. 
One party enjoins duties : the other evades or grudgingly performs 
them. Prohibitions ai-e clandestinely violated. A rivalry grows up 
between the skill and vigilance that would detect, and the skill and 
vigilance that would evade detection. Authority on the one side, and 
fear on the other, usurp the place of love. Aggression and counter- 
aggression, not friendship and co-operation, become the motives of con- 
duct ; and the college or the school is a house divided against itself. 



APPENDIX. 587 

We gladly acknowledge that there are practical limits both on the 
side of faculties and of students to these deplorable results. Still, 
students do bear about a vast amount of suppressed and latent opposi- 
tion against faculties and teachers, which, though never developing 
itself in overt acts of mutiny or indignity, yet mars the harmony, and 
subtracts from the usefulness, of all our educational institutions. 

Though all students do not partake of this feeling of hostility towards 
teachers, or in the practice of disobedience to their requirements, yet, 
as a matter of fact, the wrong-doers have inspired the right-doers with 
something of their sentiments, and coerced them as auxiliaries into 
their service. A feeling almost universally prevails throughout the 
colleges and schools of our country, that the students in each institution 
constitute of themselves a kind of corporation, and that this corporation 
is bound to protect and defend, with the united force of the whole body, 
any individual member who may be in peril of disciphne, although that 
peril may have been incurred by his own misconduct. If, then, there 
is a corporation bound together by supposed collective interests, it is 
certain that this body will have its laws ; and, as laws will be ineffica- 
cious without penalties, it will have its penalties also. These laws, by 
those who are proud to uphold and prompt to vindicate them, are 
called the code of honor, — a name which at once arouses the 
attention and attracts the sympathies of ardent and ingenuous youth. 
Being unwritten laws, with undefined penalties, both law and penalty 
will, at all times, be just what their framers and executors choose to 
make them. But unwritten laws and undefined penalties are of the 
very essence of despotism ; and hence the sanctions for violating this 
code of honor, so called, are often terrible, — so unrelenting and inex- 
orable, that few, even of the most talented and virtuous members of our 
literary institutions, dare to confront and brave them. Often they are 
the very reverse of the old Roman decree of banishment ; for that only 
deprived a citizen of fire and water, whereas these burn or drown him. 
They often render it impossible for any supposed offender to remain 
among the students whose vengeance he has incurred. 

The requisitions of this code are different in different places and at 
different times. Sometimes they are simply negative, demanding that 
a student shall take care to be absent when any thing culpable is to be 
committed, or silent when called on as a witness for its exposure. 
Sojnetimes they go farther, and demand evasion, misrepresentation, or 
even falsehood, in order to screen a fellow-student or a fellow-conspir- 
ator from the consequences of his misconduct ; and sometimes any 
one who exposes not merely a violator of college regulations, but an 



588 APPENDIX. 

offender against the laws of morality and religion, in order that he may- 
be checked in his vicious and criminal career, is stigmatized as an " in- 
former," is pursued with the shafts of ridicule or the hisses of contempt, 
or even visited with some form of wild and savage vengeance. 

It is impossible not to see, that, when such a sentiment becomes the 
" common law " of a literary institution, offenders will be freed from 
all salutary fear of detection and punishment. Where witnesses will 
not testify, or will testify falsely, of course the culprit escapes. This 
security from exposure becomes a premium on transgression. Lawless- 
ness runs riot Avhen the preventive police of virtuous sentiment and of 
allegiance to order is bhnded and muzzled. Tiius, at the very outset, 
this code of honor inaugurates the reign of dishonor and shame. 
Judged, then, by its fruits, what condemnation of such a code can be 
too severe ? 

But, in the outset, we desire to allow to this feeling, as we usually 
find it, all that it can possibly claim under any semblance of justice or 
generosity. "When, as doubtless it sometimes happens, one student 
reports the omissions or commissions of another to a college faculty 
from motives of private ill-will or malice ; or when one competitor in 
the race for college honors, convinced that he will be outstripped by 
his rival unless he can fasten upon that rival some weight of suspicion 
or odium, seeks to disparage his character instead of surpassing his 
scholarship ; or when any mere tattling is done for any mean or low 
purpose whatever, — in all such cases, every one must acknowledge 
that the conduct is reprehensible and the motive dishonoring. No 
student can gain any advantage with any honorable teacher by such a 
course. The existence of any such case supplies an occasion for ad- 
monition which no faithful teacher will fail to improve. Here, as in 
all other cases, we stand upon the axiomatic truth, that the moral 
quality of an action is determined by the motive that prompts it. 

But suppose, on the other hand, that the opportunities of the diligent 
for study are destroyed by the disorderly, or that public or private 
property is wantonly sacrificed or destroyed by the maliciously mischiev- 
ous; suppose that indignities and insults are heaped upon officers, 
upon fellow-students, or upon neighboring citizens ; suppose the laws 
of the land or the higher law of God is broken, — in these cases, and in 
cases kindred to these, may a diligent and exemplary student, after 
finding that he cannot arrest the delinquent by his own friendly counsel 
or remonstrance, go to the faculty, give them information respecting 
the case, and cause the offender to be brought to an account ? or, if 
called before the faculty as a witness, may he testify fully and frankly 



APPENDIX. 589 

to all ho knows ? Or in other words, when a young man, sent to 
college for the highest of all earthly purposes, — that of preparing him- 
self for usefulness and honor, — is wasting time, health, and character 
in wanton mischief, in dissipation, or in pi'ofligacy, is it dishonorable in 
a fellow-student to give information to the proper authorities, and thus 
set a new instrumentality in motion, with a fair chance of redeeming 
the offender from ruin ? This is the question. Let us examine it. 

As set forth in the resolutions, a college is a community. Like 
other communities, it has its objects, which are among the noblest : it 
has its laws indispensable for accomplishing those objects ; and these 
laws, as usually framed, are salutary and impartial. The laws are foi 
the benefit of the community to be governed by them ; and without the 
laws, and without a general observance of them, this community, like 
any other, would accomplish its ends imperfectly, — perhaps come to 
ruin. 

Now, in any civil community, what class of persons is it which arrays 
itself in opposition to wise and salutary laws ? Of course, it never is 
;the honest, the virtuous, the exemplary. They regard good laAvs as 
friends and protectors. But horse-thieves, counterfeiters, defrauders 
of the custom-house or post-office, — these, in their several departments, 
league together, and form conspiracies to commit crimes beforehand, 
and to protect each other from punishment afterwards. But honest 
farmers, faithful mechanics, upright merchants, the high-toned profes- 
sional man, — these have no occasion for plots and perjuries ; for they 
have no oflfences to hide, and no punishments to fear. The first aspect 
of the case, then, shows the paternity of this false idea of " honor " 
among students. It was borrowed from rogues and knaves and j^ecu- 
lators and scoundrels generally, and not from men of honor, rectitude, 
and purity. As it regards students, does not the analogy hold true to 
the letter ? 

When incendiaries or burglars, or the meaner gangs of pickpockets, 
are abroad, is not he by whose vigilance and skill the perpetrators can 
be arrested, and their depredations stopped, considered a public bene- 
factor ? And if we had been the victim of arson, housebreaking, or 
pocket-picking, what should we think of a witness, who, on being sum- 
moned into court, should refuse to give the testimony that would 
convict the offender ? Could we think any thing better of such a dumb 
witness than that he was an accomplice, and sympathized v/Ith the 
villany ? To meet such cases, all our courts are invested with power 
to deal with such contumacious witnesses in a summary manner. Re- 
fusing to testify, they are adjudged guilty of one of the grossest oflfences 



590 APPENDIX. 

a man can commit ; and tliey are forthwith Imprisoned, even ■without 
trial by jury. No community could subsist for a month, If every- 
body, at his own pleasure, could refuse to give evidence In court. It 
is equally certain that no college could subsist as a place for the 
growth of morality, and not for Its extirpation, If Its students should 
act, or were allowed to act, on the principle of giving or withholding 
testimony at their own option. The same principle, therefore, which 
justifies courts In cutting off recusant witnesses from society, would 
seem to justify a college faculty In cutting off recusant students from a 
college. 

Courts, also, are armed with power to punish perjury ; and the law 
justly regards this offence as one of the greatest that can be com- 
mitted. Following close after the offence of perjury In the courts is 
the offence of prevarication or falsehood in shielding a fellow-student 
or accomplice from the consequences of his misconduct; for, as the 
moral growth keeps pace with the natural, there is infinite danger that 
the youth who tells falsehoods will grow into the man who commits per- 
juries. 

So a student who means to conceal the offence of a fellow-student, 
or to divert investigation from the right track, though he may not tell 
an absolute lie, yet Is in a lying stale of mind, than which many a 
sudden, unpremeditated lie, struck out by the force of a vehement 
temptation, is far less injurious to character. A lying state of mind in 
youth has its natural culmination in the falsehoods and perjuries of 
manhood. 

When students enter college, they not only continue their civil rela- 
tions, as men, to the officers of the college, but they come under new 
and special obligations to them. Teachers assume much of the pa- 
rental relation towards students, and students much of the filial rela- 
tion towards teachers. A student, then, is bound to assist and defend 
a teacher as a parent, and a teacher Is bound to assist and defend a 
student as a child. The true relation between a college faculty and 
college students is that which existed between Lord Nelson and his 
sailors : he did his uttermost for them, and they did their uttermost 
for him. 

Now, suppose a student should see an Incendiary, with torch In hand, 
ready to set fire to the dwelling In which any one of us and his family 
are lying in unconscious slumber : ought he not, as a man, to say noth- 
ing of his duty as a student, to give an alarm, that we may arouse and 
escape ? Might we not put this question to anybody but the incendia- 
ry himself, and expect an affirmative answer ? But if vices and crimes 



APPENDIX. 591 

should become the regular progi'amme, the practical order of exercises, 
in a college, as they would to a great extent do if the vicious and 
profligate could secure impunity through the falsehoods or the volunta- 
ry dumbness of fellow-students ; then, surely, all that is most valuable 
and precious in a college would be destroyed in the most deplorable 
way ; and who of us would not a hundred times rather have an incen- 
diary set fire to his house while he was asleep, than to bear the shame 
of the downfall of an institution under his charge through the miscon- 
duct of its students? And, in the eyes of all right-minded men, it is 
a far lighter offence to destroy a mere material dwelling of wood or 
stone than to destroy that moral fabric which is implied by the very 
name of an educational institution. 

The student who would inform me if he saw a cut-purse purloining 
the money from my pocket, is bound, by, reasons still more cogent, to 
inform me if he sees any culprit or felon destroying that capital, that 
stock-in-trade, which consists in the fair name or reputation of the col- 
lege over which I preside. 

And what is the true relation which the protecting student holds to 
the protected offender ? Is it that of a real friend, or that of the worst 
enemy ? An offender tempted onward by the hope of impunity is 
almost certain to repeat his offence. If repeated, it becomes habitual, 
and will be repeated, not only with aggravation in character, but with 
rapidity of iteration ; unless, indeed, it be abandoned for other offences 
of a higher type. A college-life filled with the meannesses of clandes- 
tine arts, first spotted, and then made black all over with omissions 
and commissions, spent in shameful escapes from duty, and in enter- 
prises of positive wrong still more shameful, is not likely to culminate 
in a replenished, dignified, and honorable manhood. Look for such 
wayward students after twenty years, and you would not go to the high 
places of society to find them, but to the gaming-house or prison, or 
some place of infamous resort ; or if reformation has intervened, and 
an honorable life falsifies the auguries of a dishonorable youth, no- 
where will you hear the voice of repentance and sorrow more sad or 
more sincere than from the lips of the moral wanderer himself Now, 
let us ask what kind of a friend is he to another, who, when he sees 
him just entering on the high road to destruction, instead of summon- 
ing natural or official guardians to save him, refuses to give the alarm, 
and thus clears away all the obstacles, and supplies all the facilities, for 
his speedy passage to ruin ? 

If one student sees another just stepping into deceitful waters where 
he will probably be drowned, or proceeding along a pathway which 



592 APPENDIX. 

has a pitfall in its track or a precipice at its end, Is it not the impulse 
of friendship to shout his danger in his ear ? Or if I am nearer than 
he, or can for any reason more probably rescue the imperilled from his 
danger, ought he not to shout to me ? But a student just entering the 
outer verge of the whirlpool of temptation, whose narrowing circle and 
accelerating current will soon ingulf him In the vortex of sin, is In direr 
peril than any danger of drowning, of pitfall, or of precipice ; because 
the spiritual life is more precious than the bodily. It Is a small thing 
to die, but a great one to be depraved. If a student will allow me to 
co-operate with him to save a fellow-student from death, why not from 
calamities which are worse than death ? He who saves one's character 
is a greater benefactor than he who saves his life. Who, then, is the 
true friend, — he who supplies the Immunity which a bad student de- 
sires, or the saving warning or coercion which he needs f 

But young men are afraid of being ridiculed If they openly espouse 
the side of progress, and of good order as one of the essentials to prog- 
ress. But which is the greater evil, — the ridicule of the wicked, or the 
condemnation of the wise ? 

" Ask you why Warton broke through every rule .' 
' Twas all for fear that knaves would call Mm fool," 

But the student says, " Suppose I had been the wrong-doer, and my 
character and fortunes were In the hands of a fellow-student : I should 
not like to have him make report or give evidence against me ; and I 
must do as I tooidd he done hy." How short-sighted and one-sided is this 
view ! Suppose you had been made, or were about to be made, the 
innocent victim of wrong-doing, would you not then wish to have the 
past injustice redressed, or the future Injustice averted ? Towards 
whom, then, should your Golden Rule be practised, — towards the 
offender, or towards the party offended ? Where a wrong Is done, 
everybody Is injured, — the immediate object of the wrong directly, 
everybody else indirectly ; for every wrong invades the rights and 
the sense of safety which every individual, community, or body politic, 
has a right to enjoy. Therefore, doing as we would be done by to the 
offender. In such a case, Is doing as we would not be done by to eveiy- 
body else. Nay, if we look beyond the present deed and the present 
hour, the Idndest office we can perform for the offender himself is to 
expose and thereby arrest him. With such arrest, there is great 
chance that he will be saved; without it, there Is little. 

Does any one still insist upon certain supposed evils incident to the 



APPENDIX. 593 

practice, should students give information of each other's misconduct, 
we reply, that the practice itself would save nine-tenths of the occa- 
sions for informing, and thus the evils alleged to belong to the practice 
would be almost wholly prevented by it. And how much better is 
antidote than remedy ! 

But again : look at the parties that constitute a college. A faculty 
is selected from the community at large for their supposed competency 
for teaching and training youth. Youth are committed to their care 
to be taught and trained. The two parties are now together, face to 
face, — the one ready and anxious to impart and to mould, the other in 
a receptive and growing condition. A case of oifence, a case of moral 
delinquency, — no matter what, — occurs. It is the very point, the 
very juncture, where the wisdom, the experience, the parental regard, 
of the one, should be brought, with all their healing influences, to bear 
upon the indiscretion, the rashness, or the wantonness of the other. 
The parties were brought into proximity for this identical purpose. 
Here is the casus foederis. Why does not one of them supply the 
affectionate counsel, the preventive admonition, the heart'Cmanating 
and heart-penetrating reproof, perhaps even the salutary fear, which 
the other so much needs ? — needs now, needs to-day, needs at this very 
moment, — needs as much as the fainting man needs a cordial, or a 
suffocating man air, or a drowning man a life-preserver. Why is not 
the anodyne, or the restorative, or the support, given ? Skilful phy- 
sician and desperate patient are close together. Why, then, at this 
most critical juncture, does not the living rescue the dying ? Because a 
friend, a pretended fkiend, holds it as a point of honor, that, when 
Ms friend is sick, — sick with a soul-disease, now curable, but in 
danger of soon becoming incurable, — he ought to cover up his malady, 
and keep the ethical healer blind and far away ! When Cain said, 
" Am I my brother's keeper ? " it was a confession of his own crime. 
But even that crime, great as it was, fell short of encouraging Abel to 
do vsTong, and then protecting the criminal that he might repeat his 
crime. 

" When we disavow 
Being keeper to our brother, we're Ms Cain." 

Such is the whole philosophy of that miserable and wicked doctrine, 
that it is & point of honor not to "report" — though from the most 
humane and Christian motives — the misconduct of a fellow-student to 
the faculty that has legitimate jurisdiction over the case, and is bound 
by every obligation of affection, of honor, and of religion, to exercise 



594 APPENDIX. 

that jurisdiction with a single eye to the good of the offender and of 
the community over which it presides. It is a foul doctrine. It is a 
doctrine which every parent ought to denounce wherever he hears it 
advanced, — at his table, his fireside, or in public. It is a doctrine 
which every community of students ought, for their own peace, safety, 
and moral progress, to abolish. It is a doctrine which every college 
faculty ought to banish from its halls, — first by extracting it from its 
possessor, and expelling it alone ; or, if that severance be impossible, 
by expelling the possessor with it. 

The practicability of carrying out the views above presented is not 
an untried experiment. In an institution with which one of your 
committee is officially connected (Antioch College), the doctrines 
above set forth were announced at its opening, and have now been 
practised upon for a period of more than three years ; and they have 
been attended with the happiest results. Such a degree of order, of 
regularity, and of exemplariness of conduct, has been secured, that for 
more than fourteen months last past, and with between three and four 
hundred students in attendance, not a single serious case for discipline 
has occurred. 

In some respects, the experiment here referred to has been tried 
under more than an average of favoring circumstances ; in other re- 
spects, under less. The institution was new. There was no tradition- 
ary sentiment in regard to the so-called code of honor to break 
down. In that organism the distemper was not chronic. And further : 
a large portion of its early members were of mature age, — persons 
who came to college- instead of being sent there, — whose head and 
hands were alike unsullied by idea or implement of rowdyism, and who 
looked with a high-minded disdain upon all those brainless ex^jloits 
which cluster under the name of college " pranks " or " tricks " or 
" practical jokes." We call them brainless, because there has scarcely 
been a new one for centuries; the professors in these arts being 
compelled to imitate, because they have too little genius to invent. 
Indeed, their best palliation is that they are too witless to know better, 
or that they suffer under the misfortune of having silly fathers and 
silly mothers, who have permitted their minds to remain in that simia 
stage of development through which they were passing up towards 
manhood ; for, at this stage, quadrumana and bimana will act alike. 

Another point in which the college referred to has enjoyed a great 
advantage, in regard to the motive-power actuating its students, has 
been the presence of both sexes. Each sex has exercised a salutary 



APPENDIX. 595 

influence upon the other. Intellectually they have stimulated, mor- 
ally they have restrained, one another ; and it is the opinion of those 
who have administered the institution, that no other influence could, 
in so short a time, have produced so beneficial an effect. To this, per- 
haps, it should also be added, that this college discards all artificial 
systems of emulation by prizes, parts, or honors, as they are called ; 
so that one of the most powerful temptations to degrade the standing 
of a fellow-student, in the hope of advancing one's own, is removed. 

But, on the other hand, it is obvious that an attempt by a single 
college to revolutionize a public sentiment so wide-spread, so deep- 
seated, and so fortified by wicked purposes acting under the disguises 
of honor and magnanimity, must be an arduous and a perilous enter- 
prise. So true is this, that a hundred individual attempts successively 
made, though followed by a hundred discomfitures, would supply no 
argument against the triumphant success of a combined and simulta- 
neous assault, by all our literary institutions, upon the flagitious doc- 
trines of the " code of honor." For while the virus of the code exists 
in other seminaries, and in the public mind generally, every new stu- 
dent must be placed, as it were, in quarantine; and even this could 
afford no adequate security that he would not introduce the contagion. 
It is only when moral health prevails in the place from which be 
comes that we can be sure of maintaining it in the place he enters. 

In the experiment here spoken of, the general doctrines set forth in 
the resolutions, though announced and vindicated on all proper occa- 
sions, were not incorporated into the college statutes, nor were they 
presented to new students for signature or pledge; but, when any 
student fell under censure, he was then required, under penalty of 
dismission, to yield an affirmative acquiescence to the soundness 
of these doctrines, and to make an express promise to abide by them. 
Only a single case of contumacy under this requirement has occurred 
for more than three years ; and, so far as known, not a case of non- 
fulfilment of the promise. Indeed, but few cases are left for the prom- 
ise to act upon. 

In conclusion, the committee would express a confident opinion that 
the proposed revolution in public sentiment is entirely practicable. 
The evil to be abolished is an enormous one. The reform would be 
not only relatively, but positively, beneficient. The precedent already 
established, if it does not enforce conviction, at least affords encour- 
agement. The committee, therefore, recommend the doctrines set 
forth in the above resolutions to the faculties of aU colleges, — espe- 



596 APPENDIX. 

cially to those in the State of Ohio, whom they more particularly rep- 
resent, — for practical and immediate application. 

On behalf of the committee, 

HORACE MANN. 



The same convention, at the same meeting, also unanimously 
adopted the following resolutions : — 

WJiereas, Vicious and criminal men become more potent for mischief 
in proportion to the education they receive ; 

A7id loliereas, If a man will be a malefactor, it is better that he 
should be an ignorant one than a learned one : therefore 

Resolved, That it be recommended to all the colleges in the State of 
Ohio summarily to dismiss or expel students, who, without the per- 
mission of their respective teachers, use any kind of intoxicating bev- 
erages. 

Resolved, That it be recommended to all the colleges in the State of 
Ohio to prevent, by the most efhcacious means within their power, 
the kindred, ungentlemanly, and foul-mouthed vices of uttering pro- 
fanity and using tobacco. 



C. 

INTEMPERANCE, PROFANITY, TOBACCO. 

At a meeting of the Ohio State Teachers' Association, held at Co- 
lumbus, Dec. 27, 1856, a committee — consisting of the Hon. Horace 
Mann, H. H. Barney, Esq., Prof. Marsh, Prof. Young, and G. E. 
Howe, Esq. — was appointed to recommend some action respecting the 
use of intoxicating liquors, profane swearing, and tobacco, in the 
schools and colleges of the State. 

The committee afterwards submitted the following 

KEPORT AND RESOLUTIONS. 

Within the crowded hours of the association, it is impossible for 
your committee to make an extended report. Nor is it necessary for 
them to do so. On the first point, particularly, — that of using intox- 
icating liquors, — what occasion have they to dwell ? It is not any 
far-off calamity, removed to the other side of the globe, or hidden 
in the recesses of antiquity, escaping assault and overtasking descrip- 
tion ; but it is among us and of us, a present, embodied, demoniac 
reality, smiting as no pestilence ever smote, and torturing as fire can- 
not torture, destroying alike both body and soul. It invades all ranks 
and conditions of men, and its retinue consists of every form of human 



APPENDIX. 597 

misery. In all the land, there is scarcely a family, there is" not one 
social circle, from which it has not snatched a victim : alas, from many, 
how many ! No other vice marshals and heralds such hosts to perdi- 
tion. It besieges and makes captive the representatives of the people 
in legislative halls, and there gets its plans organized into law, where, 
first and chiefest, they should be annihilated. It usurps the bench, and 
there, under the guise of the sacred ermine, it suborns the judiciary to 
deny the eternal maxims and vei'ities of jurisprudence and ethics, and 
to hold those prohibitions to be unconstitutional, and invasive of natu- 
ral rights, which only conflict with their own artificial constitution and 
acquired daily habits ; and it ascends the sacred altar, and when the 
ambassador of God should speak like one of the prophets of old, or hke 
an inspired apostle, against drunkenness and drunkards, it lays the fin- 
ger of one hand upon his lips, with the other it points to some wealthy, 
somnolent inebriate below, and the ambassador forgets his embas- 
sy, and is silent. No other vice known upon earth has such potency 
to turn heavenly blessings into hellish ruins. It is no extravagance to 
say, that the sum-total of prudence, of wisdom, of comfort, of exem- 
plary conduct, and of virtue, would have been to-day sevenfold what 
they are throughout the world but for the existence of intoxicating 
beverages among men ; and that the sum-total of poverty, of wretch- 
edness, of crime, and of sorrow, would not be one-tenth part to-day 
what they now are but for the same prolific, ever-flowing, overflowing 
fountain of evil. Youth, health, strength, beauty, talent, genius, and 
all the susceptibilities of virtue in the human heart, alike perish before 
it. Its history is a vast record, which, like the roll seen in the vision 
of the prophet, is written within and without, full of lamentation and 
mourning and woe. 

No one can deny that intemperance carries ruin everywhere. It 
reduces the fertile farm to barrenness. It suspends industry in the 
shop of the mechanic. It banishes skill from the cunning hand of the 
artisan and artist. It dashes to pieces the locomotive of the engineei'. 
It sinks the ship of the mariner. It spreads sudden night over the solar 
splendors of genius at its full-orbed, meridian glory. But nowhere is 
it so ruinous, so direful, so eliminating and expulsive of all good, so ex- 
pletive and redundant of all evil, as in the school and the college, as 
upon the person and character of the student himself. Creator of evil, 
destroyer of good ! — among youth, it invests its votaries with the ful- 
ness of both prerogatives, and sends them out on the career of life to 
sufi^er where they should have rejoiced, to curse where they should 
have blessed. 

Nor do the committee feel called upon to make any extended re- 
marks upon the vice of using profane language. It Is an offence em- 
phatically without temptation and without reward. It helps not to 
feed a man, nor to clothe him, nor to shelter him. It is not wit, it is 
not music, it is not eloquence, it is not poetry ; but, of each of these, it 
is the opposite. Let a man swear ever so laboriously all his life, will 
it add a feather to the softness of his dying bed ? will It give one solace 
to the recollections of his dying hour V No ; but even the most reck- 
less man will acknowledge that it will add bitterness and anguish un- 
speakable. Were profanity as poisonous to the tongue as it is to the 



598 APPENDIX. 



soul, did it blacken and deform the lips as it does the character, what a 
ghastly spectacle would a profane man exhibit ! Yet to the eye of 
purity and innocence, to the moral vision of eveiy sensible and right- 
minded man, lips, tongue, and heart of every profane swearer do look 
ghastly and deformed as disease and impiety can make them. How 
must they look to the infinite purity of God ! 

What an ungrateful, unmanly, and ignoble requital do we make to 
God, who gave us these marvellous powers of speech wherewith to 
honor and adore, when we pervert the selfsame powers to dishonor 
and blaspheme the name of the Giver ! Perhaps the most beautiful 
and efiective compliment anywhere to be found in the whole circle of 
ancient or modern literature is that which was paid by Cicero to the 
poet Archias, in the exordium of the celebrated defence which he 
made on the trial of that client. In brief paraphrase, as cited from rec- 
ollection, it was something like this : If, says he, there is in me any 
talent, if I have any faculty or power of eloquence, if I have made 
aught of proficiency in those liberal and scholarly studies which at all 
times of my life have been so grateful to me, this Archias, my client, 
has a right to the command of them all ; for he it was who taught them 
to me : he first inspired me with the ambition of being an advocate, 
and he imbued me with whatever gifts of oratory I may possess. It is 
his right, then, to command the tribute of my services. 

If the great Cicero, standing in the presence of all the dignitaries of 
Rome, felt bound to acknowledge his obligations to the man who had in- 
structed his youth, and helped to adorn the riper periods of his life, only 
in a single department, how much more impei'ative the obligation upon 
eveiy ingenuous and noble soul to praise and honor that great Being 
who has endowed us with all we possess, and made possible whatever 
we can rightfully hope for ! 

There are certain situations where none but the lowest and most 
scandalous of men ever suffer themselves to swear. Amongst all 

f)eople claiming any semblance to decent behavior, the presence of 
adies or the presence of clergymen bans profanity. How distorted 
and abnormal is that -state of mind in which the presence of man can 
suppress a criminal oath, but not the omnipresence of God ! A Chris- 
tian should be afraid to swear ; a gentleman should be ashamed to. 
Everj' pupil, as he approaches the captivating confines of manhood, 
should propose to himself as a distinct object to be a gentleman, as 
much as to be a learned man ; otherwise he is unworthy the sacred 
prerogatives of learning. 

Your committee have but brief space and time for the consideration 
of the remaining topic. 

Among the reasons against the use of tobacco, they submit the fol- 
lowing : — 

1. Tobacco is highly injurious to health; being pronounced by all 
physiologists and toxicologists to be among the most active and virulent 
of vegetable poisons. That consumers of tobacco sometimes live many 
years does not disprove the strength of its poison, but only proves the 
strength of the constitution that resists it ; and that strength, mstead of 



APPENDIX. 599 

being wasted In resisting tlie poison, might be expended in making the 
life of its possessor longer and more useful. 

2. It is very expensive. The average cost of supplying a tobacco- 
user for life would be sufficient to purchase a good ftxrm, or to build a 
beautiful and commodious house, or to buy a fine library of books. 
Which course of life best comports with the dignity of a rational being, 
— to puff and spit this value away, or to change it into garden and culti- 
vated fields, into a nice dwelling, or into the embalmed and glorified 
forms of genius? What a difference it would make to the United 
States and to the world, if the four hundred thousand acres, now 
planted with tobacco within their limits, were planted to corn or 
wheat ! 

3. Tobacco-users bequeath weakened brains, irritable nerves, and 
other forms of physical degeneracy, to their children. The factitious 
pleasures of the parent inflict real jjains upon his offspring. The in- 
dulgences of the one must be atoned for by the sufferings of the other ; 
the innocent expiating the offences of the guilty. Nor, in regard to 
these personal and hereditary injuries to the mind, would the commit- 
tee stand merely upon the principle laid down by the physician, who, 
when asked if tobacco injured the brain, replied promptly in the nega- 
tive ; for, said he, people who have brains never touch it. 

4. Tobacco-users are always filthy; and we read of an infinitely de- 
sirable kingdom into which no unclean thing can ever enter. 

5. Tobacco-users are always unjust towards others. They pollute 
the atmosphere which other men desire to breathe and have a right to 
breathe in its purity. A smoker or chewer may have a right to a lim- 
ited circle of the atmosphere around his own person : but he has no right 
to stench the air for a rod around him, and half a mile behind him ; 
he has no right to attempt a geographical reproduction of river and lake 
by the artificial pools and streams he makes in steamboat and car. 

6. A tobacco-user is the common enemy of decency and good taste. 
His mouth and teeth, which should be the cleanest, he makes the foul- 
est part of him. When one sees a plug of nasty, coarse, liver-colored 
tobacco, he pities the mouth it is destined to enter ; but, when one sees 
the mouth, he pities the tobacco. 

7. Tbe old monks used to prove the pollutions of tobacco from Scrip- 
ture ; for, said they. It is that which cometh out of the mouth that de- 
fileth a man. 

8. It has been argued that the adaptation of means to ends, which 
characterizes all the works of creation. Intimates that snuff should 
never be taken ; for, had such been the design of Nature, the nose 
would have been turned the other end up. 

9. It may be fairly claimed, that, if Nature had ever designed that 
man should chew or smoke or snuff, she would have provided some 
place where the disgusting pi'ocess could be performed systematically, 
and with appropriate accompaniments ; but no such place or accompa- 
niments have ever yet been discovered. Tobacco is unfit for the par- 
lor ; for that is the resort of ladies, and should therefore be free from 
inspissated saliva and putrefied odors. It is not befitting the dining- 
room, where Its effluvia may be absorbed or its excretions be mingled 
with viand and beverage. Still less does it befit the kitchen, where 



600 APPENDIX. 

those culinary processes are performed which give savor and flavor to 
all the preparations that grace the generous board. It should not be 
carried into the stable ; for that is the residence of neat cattle. And 
the occupants of the sty itself would indignantly quit their premises, 
should one more lost to decency than themselves come to befume or 
bespatter or besnuff them. There is no spot or place among animals 
or men which the common uses of tobacco would not sink to a lower 
defoedation. 

10. Swiftly tending to destruction as is the use of intoxicating bev- 
erages ; vulgar, ungeutlemanly, and sinful as are all the varieties of 
profanity ; unjust and unclean as are the effusions and exhalations of 
tobacco, — yet their separate and distinctive evils are aggravated tenfold 
when combined and co-operating. How abhorrent to the senses and 
the heart of a pure and upright man is the wretch who abandons him- 
self to them all ! Physiology teaches us, that, as soon as alcohol is taken 
into the stomach, Nature plies all her enginery to expel the invader of 
her peace. She does not wait to digest it and pass it away, as is done 
with the other contents of the stomach ; but she opens all her doors, 
and summons all her forces, to banish it from the realm. She expels it 
through the lungs, through the mouth and nose, through the eyes even, 
and through the seven million pores of the skin. So let tobacco be 
taken into the mouth, or drawn up, water-spout fashion, into the nose, 
and firemen never Avorked more vehemently at a fii'e, nor soldiers 
fought more desperately in a battle, than every muscle and mem- 
brane, every gland and emunctory, now struggles to wash away the 
impurity. Every organ, maxillary, lingual, labial, nasal, even the 
lachrymal, pour out their detergent fluids to sweep the nuisance away. 
Not a fibre or cellule, not a pore or sluiceway, but battles as for life to 
extrude the foul and fetid intruder. Hence expectoration, salivation, 
the anile tears of the drunkard, and the idiot drool of the tobacco-user, 
all attest the desperation of the efforts which Nature is making to 
defecate herself of the impurity. When people first begin to drink or 
chew or smoke, outraged Nature, as we all know, often goes into 
spasms and convulsions through the vehemence of her conflict for 
escape. Finally she succumbs, and all that constitutes the life of a 
man dies before death. 

The apostle enjoins his disciples to keep their bodies pure as a tem- 
ple of (he Holy Ghost. But, in such a body, what spot is there, what 
space so large as a mathematical jooint, which the Holy Ghost, descend- 
ing from the purity and sanctity of heaven, could abide in for a mo- 
ment ? Surely, when a man reaches the natural consummation to 
which these habits legitimately tend; when his whole commerce with the 
world consists in his pouring alcohol in and pouring the impieties of 
profanity and the vilenesses of tobacco out, — gurgitation and regurgi- 
tation, the systole and diastole of his being, — he presents a spectacle 
not to be paralleled in the brute's kingdom or in the Devil's kingdom, 
on the earth or " elsewhere." 

Your committee submit the following resolutions : — 

Resolved, That school-examiners ought never, under any circum- 
stances, to give a certificate of qualification to teach school to any per- 



APPENDIX. 601 

son who habitually uses any kind of intoxicating liquors ; and that 
school-officers, when other things are equal, should systematically give 
the preference to the total-abstinent candidate. 

Resolved^ That all school-teachers should use their utmost influence 
to suppress the kindred, ungentlemanly, and foul-mouthed vices of ut- 
tering profane language and using tobacco. 

On behalf of the committee, 

HORACE MANN. 



!>. 

LETTER FROM MR. COMBE. 

The following extracts from a letter of Mr. George Combe to the 
Hon. Horace Mann and Dr. Samuel G. Howe show in what a sweet 
spirit he received friendly criticisms : — 

GoEGiE Cottage, Slatefoed, Dec. 31, 1840. 
My VERY DEAR Friends, — I have received your letters of the 28th 
and 29th November, and esteem them as the highest and purest marks of 
friendship which yon could have bestowed on me. Receive my cordial 
thanks, and rest assured, that, painful as these communications were, 
they have bound both of you to my affections with cords of double 
strength. It is only a real friend who will tell one disagreeable truths ; 
and I know well how to appreciate such sincerity. I have written and 
printed an Introduction, which I send to you partly as an answer to 
your letter. And now for the remainder of the answer, which I could 
not put in types, being private in its nature. I sent your two letters 
and my first volume to my brother. Dr. Andrew Combe. He is a severe 
judge in relation to my works, because he values my reputation highly, 
and he condemns fi-eely. He had read all the proofs ; but I solicited a 
reperusal of the volume under the new lights communicated by you : and 
I told him that I was ready to burn the whole impression (the cost of 
which was at that time $1,250), but that I could not write a better 
work ; and asked his opinion, first, whether the work would do good in 
Britain ; and secondly, whether it would damage my reputation here. 
He gave the whole a serious consideration, and expressed his opinion, 
that it would prove usefid here, and that it would not damage my re- 
putation, although it would not advance it. He regarded it as just 
such a book as a person acquainted with my mind would expect from 
me in the circumstances in which I was placed. Here, then, I have 



602 APPENDIX. 

great authorities on opposite sides ; and, as my own country naturally 
claims a preference, I have decided to proceed with the pubUcation, 
and to sustain meekly all the chastisement which will be inflicted on 
me on your side of the Atlantic. In this view, your corrections are 
highly valuable ; and I have written to Dr. Bell to give effect to them 
all, except the remark about the license law, page 88. I got that 
from a Boston lawyer, a member of the Legislature, and a very able 
and excellent man ; and I am bound to state both sides. I shall now 
answer the only points that seem to me to require notice ; keeping in 
view that Dr. Bell will give effect to all your corrections, except that 
relative to page 88. . . . 

The Introduction will stand in types here until you answer this 
letter, and I shall be happy to introduce all amendments and additions 
that you may suggest. I solicit your future corrections and remarks 
as freely as you hke, and that you will send them to Dr. Bell. He 
will omit whatever you desire. And now, my very valued and dear 
friends, accept of the best wishes and grateful thanks of 
Yours most sincerely, 

GEO. COMBE. 

GoKGiE Cottage, Slatefoed, Dec. 31, 1840. 
To THE Hon. Horace Mann. 

My much- valued Friend, — The prefixed is an epistle for you 
and Dr. Howe jointly ; and now let me thank you personally and in- 
dividually for your truly friendly letter. The only point for which I 
blame you is for not seeing what I told you personally, that, in hoc statu, 
I am not capable of writing a better book. My mind was constantly 
occupied by phrenology. My individuality is small, and my mental 
processes are performed slowly. Hence I could do no more than I 
have done. I could not devote two years to study and to sending my 
manuscripts to America, because in June I go to Germany in the great 
cause ; and, as soon as this journal is completed, I shall commence a 
serious study of German, with a view to lecture in that language next 
winter. This brooks no delay ; for the brain at fifty-two is stiff, and 
every year renders it less capable of receiving new impressions. 




8 3 r 



- "-TIMMY OF 



CONGRESS 



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